§ Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Amendment to Question [28th April], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
§
Which Amendment was—
To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'This House declines to proceed further with a measure which, while failing to promote the cause of temperance, violates the principles of equity.'—(Mr. Cave)—instead thereof.
§ Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
§ MR CHAPLIN (Surrey, Wimbledon),resuming his speech, said: There are three points with regard to the general complexion of the Bill to which I still desire to devote some observations. The first of them is this: According to my mind it is really a misnomer to call this a temperance Bill at all. It is in reality a Finance Bill. Personally I feel obliged to describe it, as regards some of its clauses at all events—which I hope, however, will be largely modified in the future—as a great measure of what seems to me a financial blunder, which should never be introduced in our time or by any Government. I believe the Bill is fraught with injury and wrong to the great interest with which it proposes to deal, and in my judgment the injury inflicted is by no means limited to that. I do not wish to exaggerate, and I do not think I shall do so if I say that one, and by no means the least, of the injuries inflicted by this Bill is that it has given something in the nature of a shock to public confidence. You have frightened and alarmed every other interest in the country, and, in my opinion, that is perhaps one of the most mischievous and most dangerous contingencies that appertain to the Government of this country. Nobody now, no matter who or what he is, whatever his work, calling, business, profession, or property, knows whether he may not be disturbed tomorrow. It is now the turn of the brewers; to-morrow it may be that of the bankers or anybody else, and it is because that is the situation to-day that I have described this Bill as having given a shock to public confidence. The worst of it is this, that although the Bill may be destroyed, and I trust most earnestly will be, yet unhappily the shock to public confidence will remain. It seems to me that the Government are inconsistent in their policy. It is said that this is a great measure to diminish drunkenness and promote the cause of temperance amongst our people. There cannot be a more admirable object. But are not the inhabitants of 1677 Ireland and Scotland part of our people? Surely they are, and if this is the object of this Bill and it is good for England, can it be less good for the people of the other two countries also? If that be so, why is it not extended to Ireland and Scotland, where at the present time it is notorious that the consumption of alcoholic liquor is greater than it is in England? If the Government did extend it it might bring them into sharp collision with their greatest allies and principal supporters in those countries. But if that is what accounts for their exclusion from this Bill, I must remark that it says very little for the genuine character and the reality of the Government's reforming zeal in the campaign into which they have entered against the evil of drunkenness. At this period of the debate it is needless for me to dwell at any length on the measure of the loss they are going to inflict upon large numbers of the people of this country. That has been done, I think, pretty thoroughly already. But what is the use of doing so in the face of the callous indifference, as it appears to me, of the Front Treasury Bench with regard to the effect of the Bill on large numbers of people in this country? That weighs with me more than anything else in my opposition to this Bill, an opposition I am determined to continue to offer to it. One hon. Member of the Front Bench spoke in terms of the greatest pity of the poor and widow investors, who, he said, would suffer greatly. I would fain believe the pity he expressed was genuine, but if it was, what pity do the Government show them in this Bill? Where is it to be found in any single one of the forty-seven clauses? Why, that document as it stands at present is not one but a whole series of clauses designed, and very cleverly designed, to complete the ruin of these people. I say that it is the Government and the Party who support them who have made already and are continuing to make the position, which they declare to be bad enough, infinitely worse. [Cries of "No."] Yes, a thousand times or more, as is shown by the opposition to their measure even at the present moment and before it 1678 is carried—and I hope it never may be—into law. Let me ask another question. What is this going to justify? What are the Government going to gain by these harsh and cruel methods that they are adopting? Surely they must know by this time; they surely must have realised by now that there are hundreds of humble investors in this country whom this Bill in its present shape will bring to poverty, and I am afraid in many cases to absolute ruin. What are the Government going to do? What is their great object? They have shown us nothing at the present time to give warrant to the Bill, or to show that the reduction of the licences and the diminution of drunkenness will proceed pari passu together; that the substitution of clubs which they cannot control for the public houses which they can, and do, is likely to lead in the smallest degree to the spread of temperance among our people so simply, widely, and happily as everyone on all sides of the House desires. All the facts and figures so freely quoted in this debate appear to me, and I have done my best to master them, to lead to absolutely opposite conclusions. I believe myself, with the most absolute sincerity, that this measure, whatever the expectations and anticipations of the Government may be with regard to it, is more likely to lead to increased consumption of alcoholics liquors privately or otherwise. It will be enough to quote the statement of Mr. Gladstone, that there are three great principles which ought to guide us in the consideration of this question, and one of them is that changes should be made with due and careful regard to the state of public opinion in the country. That reminds me of something I was told a great many years ago—I do not like to think how many—by Mr. Delane, the famous editor of The Times, to whom, in those days, I was often indebted for much kindness and encouragement. What he said to me was this—
Now, remember that on any question of unusual interest and public excitement the letter-bag of The Times is almost always an unfailing indication of public opinion.I do not know how far the private post may convey the same kind of information, but this I do know, that never in the whole 1679 course of my political career have I had such an enormous number of communications on any subject as I have had on this, except one other, but that was a very different kind of matter altogether. But if these private letters convey anything, all I can say is this, that the tide of public opinion must be running at a most alarming rate against hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and unless they take great care, it seems to me, if I may judge by my experience, that it will end very quickly indeed in an irresistible and overwhelming flood, which in all probability will sweep them and their Bills away together. That in all probability is the fate which, sooner or later, awaits them. I would venture to appeal to His Majesty's Government, on behalf of these unhappy and unfortunate investors of whom I have spoken, who are in no way whatever to blame for the position of the licensing question as a whole, to reconsider, if they will, the position of these persons, these thousands, these millions of investors, to one and all of whom the provisions of this Bill in its present form will be a most injurious, unjust, and to many, I fear, a crushing and fatal blow. Most earnestly do I hope that my appeal will meet with some consideration at all events, for this I do feel, that if you adhere to what you call the fundamental provisions of your Bill, if you persist in forcing them through Parliament in their present form, not only will you find the verdict of public opinion entirely against you, but you will go down to posterity with the execration of your victims as men who were responsible, for the first time in the history of English Government, for the most uncalled for, for the most heartless and cruel piece of public confiscation that was ever attempted by any English Ministry against thousands, nay, against millions, of perfectly innocent, perfectly blameless, and perfectly unoffending people of this kingdom.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE,) Carnarvon BoroughsIn the last solemn words which the right hon. Gentleman addressed to this House, he threatened us with a flood which was to sweep us away. I do not know when we are to 1680 be submerged in this alcoholic deluge, but in the meantime we must do our best to avert the evils which the right hon. Gentleman himself is prepared to acknowledge that this traffic is causing to the country. I have listened with a good deal of attention to the bifurcated speech which he has delivered partly on Friday and partly this morning, but in the course of that speech he has given the House pretty well all the stock arguments ever advanced against any measure of reform in this House of Commons. We have had "the thin end of the wedge"; it is simply the beginning; it is to lead to Socialism. It is rather remarkable, if this is a Socialistic measure—and I would like the right hon. Gentleman to explain the phenomenon—if it is a Socialistic measure, based on Socialistic principles, how he accounts for the fact that the Socialistic Party is engaged at the present moment in fighting all the candidates who are supporting the Bill.
§ MR. CHAPLINWell, I informed the House that the Socialists were supporting it with enthusiasm in the House of Commons.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI know, but not because it is based on Socialistic principles. They are supporting it on its merits, exactly as the Archbishop of Canterbury is supporting it. He surely does not belong to the Independent Labour Party. Then the right hon. Gentleman used the argument of confiscation—this argument which has been advanced against every Liberal measure from the days of the Reform Bill. The owners of rotten boroughs used the same argument. There were men in those boroughs who made a trade out of the franchise which they had there. They had a reasonable expectation from their past experience that they would still go on making the same business. They were swept away without compensation; so they said it was robbery. We have also had the widows and orphans dressed up for the occasion. Ever since I have been in this House whenever there has been any Bill or any act of administration of a Liberal character, we have always had the widows and orphans introduced. It was the case 1681 in regard to the taxation of ground values; they seem to have invested in those. In respect of bad housing accommodation, widows and orphans have invested largely in that class of property. Then as to Chinese labour. The widows and orphans seem to have picked out all the worst mines in South Africa, all the mines that could not pay without coolie labour, and invested heavily in them. I thought they had lost all their money there, but it seems that the money they have lost they have re-invested in Meux's brewery. Then the right hon. Gentleman trotted out "The Coach and Horses." That is a most useful electioneering wheeze, but if the right hon. Gentleman had taken the trouble to investigate the circumstances he would have found that there is really nothing in it.
§ MR. CHAPLINI gave the facts of the case, and asked you to answer them.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI think the right hon. Gentleman might have at least taken the House into his confidence. The House would then have known that the facts stated have nothing in common at all with the facts as they really are. I will deal with that later. I want to come to the question of expectation. The right hon. Gentleman finally has come to the conclusion that this is a Bill which will lead to an increase in the consumption of drink, and yet it will ruin the brewers. All those who are engaged in making beer and selling beer are to be reduced to beggary, and yet this Bill is somehow or other going to increase the consumption of drink throughout the country. It is a very remarkable Bill if that is the case. But, having listened to this debate for three or four days, there is one thing that has struck me very forcibly, more especially in listening to the speeches on the other side of the House. No man listening to those speeches could come to the conclusion that we were debating a proposal made by a Government which is supported by all the organisations that have made a special study of this problem—debating a Government Bill to deal with the greatest social evil of the moment, an acknowledged evil, not disputed by any section, and acknowledged by the right hon. Gentleman in those 1682 eloquent words which he used towards the close of his speech.
§ SIR FRANCIS LOWE (Birmingham, Edgbaston)It is a decreasing evil.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI should be very glad to believe that that is the case, but I am sorry to say, looking at the statistics, it is not decreasing; on the contrary, in some respects it is increasing, and far and away the most serious increase is that of female drinking. From the point of view of the future of the race, I cannot conceive of any graver symptom than that. At any rate I do not know that it is denied by anybody that it is a very grave social evil, and the gravest of the moment. Yet nobody listening to the speeches on the other side of the House could conceive that we are really discussing the method of curing that evil. On the contrary, it is all about debentures, and preference shares, and investments, and Stock Exchange transactions, while at the bottom of the whole thing you have this very grave social symptom. If hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite had come to the House and said: "We are dissatisfied with your proposals dealing with the property invested in the liquor traffic," and if they had said: "Provided there is some equitable provision made, we will help you to the utmost of our power to solve the problem, to do something to decrease the evil of intemperance, by equipping magistrates and local authorities with full powers to cope with the evil," then, speaking for myself, I say I should not scrutinise so closely the title of the publicans and the licencees to even generous treatment. But they have not done so. They have treated it purely as if it were a property question. And, therefore, we are bound, in the first instance, to examine the claim which is put forward by them to the treatment of this as property and to examine closely the character which they claim the property has and the treatment which ought to be meted out to it as a property when the State takes measures for the purpose of dispossessing, for public reasons, those who are in the enjoyment of that property. Well now, what is that property? We have heard a good deal about vested 1683 rights. The licence has been treated as if it were an indefeasible vested right or interest in the licensees. Who has ever said so? I ask the right hon. Gentleman who will probably take part in the debate after I have sat down whether he can point out a single Act of Parliament or a single decision of any Court which recognises this property as having the character of a vested legal right. I am dealing with the problem before the Act of 1904. The Leader of the Opposition when he introduced that Bill made it perfectly clear that, in his judgment, it did not alter the law as it stood at that time—he did not intend that it should. He did not intend to confer on the licensees any right which they did not possess at that moment. But, still more, practically all the money invested in these brewery companies was in the main invested on the strength of the law as it existed before 1904. There has been very little money invested since. Therefore, the whole question is: What expectation had those investors when they put their money in, and is there anything in this Bill which defeats that expectation? I do not want to enter into any very elaborate legal argument, but I should have thought it was perfectly clear to anyone who had taken the trouble to master even the elements of the law that before 1904 the licensees had only an expectation defensible either on misconduct or in the absolute discretion of the magistrates whenever they considered the house was not required owing to redundancy. All the decisions on that point are perfectly clear. I do not know that I can do better than quote an extract from the argument in the Court of Appeal in the case of "Sharp v. Wakefield," because I think that puts it as clearly as it could possibly be put. The Master of the Rolls there said—
Not renewing is not taking away, it is not giving.We have heard a good deal about the bargain and the contract in the course of this debate. Mr. Candy, who was then the leading counsel of the licensed victuallers, said—He has expended his money on the strength of an unwritten contract, between himself and the State as represented by the local authority, that so long as he conducts himself properly 1684 and commits no offence against the tenour of his licence, so long will he be allowed to keep a licensed house.The Master of the Rolls answers—Where do you find that unwritten contract? You are assuming the point which you have to argue.Lord Justice Fry said—If you have got a contract you can enforce it.The Master of the Rolls then went on to say—It is a blank assumption in the way of argument of the thing which you have got to prove. You say that there is an unwritten contract that the magistrates will renew. That is the very thing that you have to prove.Mr. Candy said—Then perhaps I ought to omit the words 'Relying on an unwritten contract.'The Master of the Rolls said—He has nothing to rely on; he has got a licence for one year and nothing more.Lord Justice Fry said—He cannot create an obligation on the justices from any expectation of his own. He cannot deprive them of any discretion vested in them because he chooses to expect something.Well, that is the position to-day. It was purely a licence for a year and no longer. The magistrates not merely had absolute discretion to withhold the renewal of the licence, but they exercised that discretion constantly, not merely on the grounds of misconduct, but because in their judgments the house was not necessary, and superfluous houses rather conduced to intemperance in a neighbourhood. The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has quoted Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Gladstone's opinions in 1880. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman was present in the House when Mr. Gladstone later on arguing the question in 1890 stated that after the decisions in the Darwen and "Sharp v. Wakefield" cases he had changed his opinion, for the simple reason that after these decisions, he said, it was made perfectly clear to everybody that the licencee had no right to renewal, and that therefore there was nothing to complain about. This is what Mr. Gladstone said on that occasion—The right hon. Gentleman, the President of the Local Government Board, did me the 1685 honour to quote from speeches made by me about ten years ago"—(the very speeches which the right hon. Gentleman quoted here)—"passages favouring within limit of terms, and favouring in some degree the principle of compensation in its application to the liquor trade. I should have been obliged to the right hon. Gentleman if he had mentioned two circumstances which, in my opinion, are one of them material and the other vital to the cases now before the House. The one that is material is that the law has been cleared and settled since that date in a manner which, in my judgment. and in the judgment of most men, saving the distinguished exception of the Solicitor-General, is highly unfavourable not only to the doctrine of vested interests which the Home Secretary shrinks from maintaining in those terms, but likewise to the doctrine of permanent interest on the part of the publican in his annual licence.So he made it perfectly clear that he had altered his view in regard to the question of compensation. And he went on, in the course of the same speech, to say that never had he committed himself to compensation to anybody except the licensee who was actually in the enjoyment of the licence himself. That makes a very substantial difference in the position of Mr. Gladstone on this matter. With regard to that position we are told: "Yes, you say it is only an expectations; but von tax it." There was a question put this afternoon by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury in order to show that the Inland Revenue at the present moment taxed it as property. Well, of course, it has a market value. But so have new licences granted miner the Act of 1904. There you have no right to renew. It was specifically provided by the then Prime Minister, for he said you must make it clear in future that you are going to create a new licence—there is to be no right of renewal. They are absolutely within the discretion of the Bench. And even if you had local option introduced here to-morrow you would still have an expectation which would have a market value. Take Canada. It is perfectly recognised there that a licence is for one year and no longer. Nobody disputes it. The law takes away the licence without a penny of compensation, though you get local option over the whole of the Dominion practically. By a vote you can put an end to every licence in the district, and still those 1686 licences have a market value. There a licensee in a particular district says: "We have had local option in this particular country for about twenty or thirty years, but it has not been exercised." Take Montreal or Toronto. There they say it is not likely to be exercised. They gauge public opinion and they come to the conclusion that as far as Toronto and Montreal are concerned, there is not the remotest probability that there will be any public vote which will take away the expectation of the publican of renewal. What is the result? A licence there has a market value which it has not got in a rural district which is much more liable to fluctuations of public opinion, and where you may get a vote which may deprive the licensee of his licence. That is exactly the case here. The magistrates have the full power to withhold the renewal of a licence, but the licensee says they have not done so; they have only done so in cases of misconduct, or in cases of redundant houses which would create a good deal of mischief; and they just calculate the probabilities of the market and they buy that. Well, that is a real market value which can be taxed in Canada and in the United States of America. It is taxed here, and there is no distinction between one case and the other. Before I dispose of this question, I would like to answer our point. It is said—I think it is said to-day in a leading article in The Times—that it is true that the licence may technically have only been granted for one year, but still it is acknowledged as a matter of custom and unbroken habit that there was a right of renewal. That is not the case. Times out of number magistrates have withheld licences on grounds not merely of misconduct, but of redundancy; and any one who will take the trouble to read the book of Mr. Sidney Webb on the licensing system in England, where he seems to have taken an infinity of pains and trouble in order to get at the facts and facts which previously, I think, have not appeared in any history, can see that for himself. What happened? At the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, when the law was substantially as it was before 1904, 1687 licences had been granted probably for the last 200 or 300 years for the same house; but the magistrates, under the influence of public opinion, came to the conclusion that there were too many licensed houses in the country. What did they do? They had no power to grant compensation. They never went to Parliament to ask for powers to grant compensation; on the contrary, they sat down and they examined the problem; they sent to the churchwardens and the clergy and got a report from them of the number of public-houses in each parish, and on the basis of those reports they swept away without any compensation under the powers which were in existence up to 1904 thousands of public-houses in England and Wales. Then came a reaction. But is not that the history of all human progress? Still we are getting on. But the good was done in the meantime, and they rushed to the other extreme as you are doing, and they said: "Now let us have free licences." But free licences were just as much a confiscation of the property of the licensee as reduction. Supposing that, instead of introducing a Bill to reduce licences by 30,000, my right hon. friend had introduced a Bill to abolish licences altogether, and to make the sale of beer and spirits as free as the sale of bread—what would have happened? You would have confiscated ten times more property than by this Bill. That is what the magistrates did. First, they swept away thousands of licences because they were redundant, and then they expanded the number of licences and so reduced their value. Then we come to the do-nothing period, and then during the twenty years before the Act of 1904 benches of magistrates were beginning to reduce licences by the thousand, purely because they were superfluous. What right has any purchaser or investor to assume that the law guaranteed to him an indefeasible title? The law declared emphatically in every Court, from the magistrates to the House of Lords, that there was no indefeasible right, that the discretion of the magistrate was unfettered, and that it had been exercised in thousands of cases, so that the licensed trade knew; and if anything further was required 1688 there was the warning given by these Home Secretary. He circularised them and told them that these decisions made it clear that they had no vested interests in their licences. Of these brewery companies which practically came into existence between fifteen and twenty years before the Act of 1904, as much as 95 per cent. of the capital was invested in this period when the law had been declared, and no investor could possibly have been taken in. But we have foreign and Colonial precedents. The law in the Colonies is exactly what it is here. There was an annual licence granted, and yet what have the Colonies done? Local option laws have been passed, and high licence laws have been passed without any compensation. The hon. Member for Dulwich has been very emphatic in his approval of the suggestions that the Government are guilty of a great act of confiscation in imposing a fourteen years time-limit. The hon. Member comes from New Brunswick. What has happened there? In New Brunswick an Act has been passed whereby the Lieutenant-Governor may cancel all licences in a parish on the demand of the parishioners. And the licences are to be entitled to receive what? Fourteen years time-limit? No, a pro rata rebate of the licence fee paid by him for the unexpired portion of the year. The hon. Member for Dulwich ought to be ashamed to come from such a colony. In Canada, what is the time-limit? Ninety days. With ninety days, notice any parish, without compensation, can adopt a resolution that no liquor shall be sold within its boundaries. In the United States the case is still more significant, and for this reason. The United States is the only country in the world where they have a constitutional law for the protection of property. The Times Financial Supplement the other clay called attention to that fact, and to the claim put forward in New York that investments were safer in America than in any European country, because a law could not be passed dealing with property without the Supreme Court's declaring it ultra vires. Yet in that country they passed in tens of States laws conferring on the locality power to wipe out licences without the payment of a single penny. If that is 1689 confiscation, why does not the Supreme Court, which is the most sensitive Court in the world, interfere? They have done so. I might ask hon. Members opposite, that being the law, what claim they can put forward for the liquor trade's receiving exceptional indulgence. I should like to point out one circumstance. A good deal of its profit must be a profit on excessive drinking and on illegal drinking. Hundreds of thousands of convictions for drunkenness! It all goes to swell the claims for compensation. Take the finance of the trade. My hon. friend the Member for Spen Valley in the very powerful contribution which he made to this debate has quite sufficiently exposed that. But the hon. and learned Member for the Walton Division quoted a few cases the other day; and he was very indignant about the robbing of people who had invested their money in a certain brewery. The hon. and learned Member mixes up his statistics and his law so much with his jokes that I find it very difficult to discriminate. But he produced certain figures on the First Reading, and he was asked to show how they were made up. He has not yet thought fit to comply with that request.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN (Worcestershire, E.)He explained that.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEYes, but has had two months to produce them; and certainly brewery figures and finance cannot be accepted without investigation. I wonder whether the hon. and learned Member has investigated his cases very thoroughly? I invite him to do so. What are the facts in regard to several of these brewery companies, and the noisiest of them? There are two cases I know. Most people when invited to invest in debentures assume that they are a first security on the property. What is the fact in relation to these brewery companies? They buy public-house after public-house, mortgaging each in turn. Then they obtain a valuation of the premises, deduct the mortgages, and issue a prospectus, not saying that there are mortgages, but giving the balance, the mere equity of redemption. They give the public the impression 1690 that the valuation is one of the property as it stands; and then people invest in the debentures, and the result is that in many cases they lose their money. Then these people talk about widows and orphans.
§ MR. HARMOOD-BANNER (Liver pool, Everton)May we have the means?
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI have no objection to giving the names. As far as property is concerned, all you have is this shadowy expectation dependent on the discretion of the magistrates, up to the end of 1904. It is true that under that Act, under the pressure of the trade, something more was given. But that is property that belonged to the people. A right was taken from the public. When it is suggested that Government, in the interest of the public, are taking away private property, that is called robbery. What name should be given to the taking away of the property which belongs to the public? [Cries of "Political jobbery"] What in this Bill do we offer in substitution for this purely shadowy expectation? First of all a time-limit of fourteen years, which is the most liberal allowance ever given, except in one case, in any temperance Bill introduced throughout the Empire. If any licence is taken away in the mean time compensation is given. I have heard a good deal of criticism on the basis of the compensation. That compensation depends entirely upon the extent to which the brewer has been honest to the public in supplying the facts to the Inland Revenue and the assessment committee. If he chooses to pay a nominal rent and produce that to the Revenue officer as the real rent; if he prefers that the rent should be paid under the name of "barrelage;" if he prefers to cook the accounts and never to reveal it until he brings forward his claim for compensation, then he must suffer like other people. This is over-cleverness, I suppose. Take the "Crown" case given by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Kingston in his very able speech. He put the "Crown" case, and said that under this Bill the compensation would be something trivial. Very well, but why? I will tell him. The "Crown" case is one where the rent of the lease was £20. 1691 Very well,the time came when the "Crown" had to be paid compensation, and suddenly it was discovered that the real rent was not £20 but £150. Why and how? "Oh" it was said. "it is by putting in 15s. a barrel," and that was the real rent which was the basis on which the Judge computed the compensation, but in the meantime what had happened? That was the rent which was given to the Inland Revenue officers, but £150 was not the rent given for the purposes of the Poor Law. I have no doubt that those gentlemen who owned the house were patriots, and yet they were defraud the Revenue of perhaps two-thirds of what they were entitled to pay as a contribution towards bringing the war to an end. They took away all this money from the poor—the very poor who whom they had helped to create. They defrauded the Revenue, defrauded their fellow ratepayers, defrauded the shareholders, defrauded each other as to the basis of compensation, and then when we propose to protect the victims they turn round and say: "What thieves you are!" If I were the hon. and learned Member for Kingston I do not think I would quote the "Crown" case again. Look at all these cases, and take this Return presented to the House of Commons by my hon. friend the Under-Secretary for the Home Department. Look at the compensation paid, and look at the basis on which these houses contributed either to the Revenue or to the local rates. A little public-house at Wandsworth is compensated by payment of £4,600 for the licence, not for the house. If the licence is taken away, what would the goodwill be worth without the licence? Here was a little bit of a house, which, if von were to let it, would only bring in about £45. It was absolutely unfitted for a purpose of this kind, but if you took the basis of compensation you would find that it was not paying half of its real contribution to the revenue and the local rates. Their first duty is to be honest with their neighbours, and this will help them to be so, and to that extent it will do them good. Very well, then, at the end of the fourteen years the State resumes the monopoly value. Now what is the monopoly value? Let me say what it is not. It is assumed that it means that 1692 the State will take over all the public-house business of the country. Nothing of the sort. [An HON. MEMBER: I wish it would.] There is an hon. Member who would like the State to start business in that line. That is what the monopoly value is not. You take away nothing from them in the monopoly value which would legitimately belong to them in common with other businesses. I think the best plan is to take some other refreshment business. Supposing you had a refreshment house to supply food in any part of London. What is it that gives it its value? There is the locality to begin with. Then there is the skill and business aptitude of the manager, and there is in addition to that, for it is part of the value, the fact that it has a reputation for cheapness or quality, or a combination of both, and people go to it through force of habit or they are attracted to it in that kind of way by reputation. All that is legitimate business. It is business that enable; refreshment-house keepers who have licences to make fortunes at the present moment. But supposing you said to the refreshment-house keeper say, an "A.B.C." or a "Lyons": We will step in and prevent anybody else from opening another refreshment room within so many yards of you," it is quite clear that they would be willing to pay a good deal for that. They have built up their business as the result of their skill, but if you give them, in addition to that, protection against competition that in itself has a market value. That is all that is taken and all that it is proposed to resume at the end of fourteen years. It has nothing to do with the business. If they sell good beer, if they keep a good house, if they attract business legitimately, all that is their's still, and it is not well that they should have more. Anything that belongs to the State and which confers a special protection given to them against competition—against a man setting up next door—that they have got to pay for and ought to pay for. As a matter of fact, in principle, there will be no greater power conferred at the end of fourteen years than was possessed by the magistrates before, and what was the power of the magistrates before? The power of the magistrates was to sit down and consider what the 1693 needs of the locality were. It was not merely their power but their duty and business. They sat down, as we find recorded in the volume by Mr. Sidney Webb, they asked reports, made inquiries, investigated the matter, and got to know what the needs of the locality were, and what would be good for the locality. Well, having discovered what the locality wanted, they were bound to decide on that and on no other consideration. That is exactly what will happen afterwards, with this difference, that the locality will declare for itself what it wants instead of having to send for the magistrates to make inquiries, put men in the witness-box, and get evidence. The magistrates will say: "We will await the decision of the locality itself." The old system was local option through the witness-box; in future the system will be local option through the ballot box.
§ *MR. LYTTELTONDoes the right hon. Gentleman say that justices, when an application to renew a licence is made, are entitled to compel the licensee to put the licence up to auction and pay the produce to the public authority?
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEAs a matter of fact, I do not know what that has to do with the point with which I am dealing.
§ *MR. LYTTELTONThe right hon. Gentleman says that at the end of fourteen years time-limit the licensee is precisely in the same position, that he is restored to the same position as before 1904. I think that is not so.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEThe point I was making was in regard to the power of suppression, of the power they had to regulate the number of licences. They have exactly the same power as before. The question asked by the right hon. and learned Gentleman is whether it is desirable that there should be power of that kind. That is a matter for argument, which I consider quite subordinate to the general plan. I am dealing with the broad principle, and I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman will see that the power vested in the magistrates 1694 before is exactly the power vested afterwards, with the difference that they will await the directions of the locality in future, instead of calling witnesses to ascertain the needs of the locality. What then are the temperance provisions contained in the Bill? There is, first of all, the provision for reduction of licences. The necessity for reduction is admitted by the trade, and it is admitted by the hon. and learned Gentleman who made out what no doubt he considered a good case for the trade, and one thing that struck me very much in his opening speech, when speaking from a good deal of experience, was that he said that a reduction would be of very little use except in the congested areas. Well, I am not disposed to disagree with him. Is not that exactly the case where you get reductions under this Bill?
§ MR. CAVE (Surrey, Kingston)I do not think I said that. I said that that was one of the cases in which reduction would be useful.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEVery well; I take the same view. It was the view taken by the majority of the Commission in their Report. Wherever you have an area where the population has congregated in one particular spot, and where the neighbourhood is sodden with alcohol, that is a case where reduction will be invaluable. But as everybody knows these are the poorest districts. Go to the well-to-do suburbs and you find they take very good care that there are no public-houses in their locality. There was a phrase which fell from the lips of the hon. Gentleman—I do not know whether inadvertently—when he talked of the nuisance of a public-house near your own dwelling. That is a nuisance with which the poor have to put up. The brewer never tolerates it; the rich do not put up with it; the powerful classes who control the benches of magistrates take good care that they never have this nuisance near them. But when you come to the poorer districts you find this incessant expenditure on drink which drags them down deeper and deeper into the depths of humanity where one dare not follow them further. These are the districts where you find 1695 this congestion, and that is what this Bill seeks to remedy. I remember what The Times said about these districts—
For a scene of horrid vice and filth and lust and furore, all drawn into one point and there fermenting, a man might search the world over and not find a rival to a thriving public-house in a low drinking neighbourhood.These are the public-houses that this Bill will get rid of.
§ MR. GRETTON (Rutland)Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House the date of that? [An HON. MEMBER on the MINISTERIAL Benches: Does that alter the truth of it?]
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEIt was March, 1881. Does the hon. Member—and he ought to know—deny that there are public-houses of that character now? [MINISTERIAL cries of "Answer," "Guilty," and "Order."] These are the public-houses that ought to be swept away, and it is about time that they were. We have heard a great deal about property and debentures, and of the determination of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite to make this a property question. But what has been their contribution to the removal of this great social evil, which is sinking so many hundreds of thousands? They say: "Look at the Act of 1904; is not that doing everythings?" Well, what is it doing? It is perfectly true that it is getting rid of a few small houses but its value is going to be less and less instead of more and more. It is getting rid of a cheaper class of houses at an extravagant price. A very remarkable article in the Westminster Review shows how the public-house knows that its time is coming. It is because of that that its accounts are fattened for the slaughter. A year in advance the patronage increases enormously: free drinks all round. That is why we have those swollen figures of miserable little public-houses here and there throughout the country. When we gradually get rid of these small ones there are others we must get rid of as well. Take those pointed at by The Times. They are crowded and doing an enormous trade even in doing these poor districts. That is our complaint; that is the evil. But you have to buy them out by and by, and where 1696 is your money to come from? There is none left. Your fund will be bankrupt when you begin the real business. There is another thing. As a matter of fact the Act of 1904 has done away almost entirely with penalising misconduct on the part of publicans. What is the public-house you get rid of now? The public-house is as badly conducted as ever, and ought to be abolished without one penny of compensation. But what happens? There comes the compassion, to which the hon. and learned Member for Kingston referred, for the poor licensee. The magistrates do not wish to deprive him altogether of compensation. If there was a sort of half-way house, and they could give him a small sum, it would be a different thing. But they have to give either the full value or nothing; and although there are cases of misconduct full compensation is given in order to get rid of the public-house. Under this Bill there will be no inducement for a publican to get rid of his house in that way; the inducement will be for the publican to behave in such a way as to survive. That will be a much more important incentive to the cause of temperance than the other. If you make it worth his while to behave so as to induce the local authority to give him compensation you will put him on his good behaviour. The most important part of the Bill, from a temperance point of view, is that it secures a free hand to the State at the end of the time-limit. That is what happened in Canada, and in the United States of America, and in. Australia. I would not like to dogmatise as to the best methods of spreading temperance and suppressing excess. There are endless varieties of experiments that have been tried, and I do not know that we have got to the end of them. But why should we not experiment? After all, every social reform is an experiment; and, at any rate, these experiments in Canada, in others of our Colonies, and in parts of America, are promoting temperance. We should here have an absolutely free hand; that is the great thing to have. That is the great thing to aspire to in order to deal with these evils without this complication of property. What is the alternative of right hon. Gentlemen opposite? I have only met with one, 1697 from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Worcester, who spoke with special favour of Germany, where there was abundant opportunity for drinking and still sobriety. Virtue guaranteed by the State! Well, the right hon. Gentlemen opposite are very fond of observing precedents. Germany is always either a bugbear or a model. The German Army, the German Navy, the German fiscal system, and now it is German beer! The right hon. Gentleman believes in the British workman and his wife, on the German model, going to a beer-house, eating black bread and drinking Lager beer, simply because a deputation from Birmingham saw German working-men doing it without getting drunk. Well, I have heard of the Canadian model. The Canadian drinks one-fourth of what we do in this country. He does it by means of legislation which deprives the working-man of unlimited opportunities of getting drunk. That is the ideal we wish to aspire to. The hon. and learned Gentleman who moved the Amendment made the only other contribution. And what is it? He has admitted the evil. He says something must be done, but his only contribution is censure, and criticism, and condemnation. What ray of hope is there in that? Has he no proposal to deal with this evil?
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEWe gave you a chance, and what a mess you made of it! The difficulty would have been infinitely less if it had not been for the contribution of your Bill. The evil is surely a gigantic one. That is not denied. There are 200,000 convictions for drunkenness, and that is only a token figure. I have served as a magistrate's clerk, and I knew these cases. They are not the case of a man who gets occasionally drunk, but of the hardened drunkard—not of a man who merely staggers along the street, but of a man who is a nuisance to his neighbours and is disorderly. They are the regular army of drunkards, and I am sorry to say, do not represent one-tenth of the drunkenness. And then there is the vaster number of people, who, without actually getting into the clutches 1698 of the law, and without actually getting drunk, spend upon drink the money which ought to provide the food, clothing, and shelter of their families, and actually gradually kill themselves with drink. I am not going to argue the problem of whether moderate drinking is useful, or harmless, or healthful. Let us assume that it is. At any rate, excess rots the constitution in every fibre, and who will deny that there is a prodigious excess in the drink bill of this country? £160,000,000 a year; £22 per family! The drink bill of Canada, if we had it here, would mean a drink bill of £40,000,000. A surplus of £120,000,000 would double the housing accommodation of the country. Take any test. An excess which depresses the vitality and the energies of the race is responsible for an enormous waste of national resources. It is not a material thing. It is the faculties of health and strength, of brain and heart, which go to make a great nation, which are depressed and destroyed by this agency. And if any one wants to know what it is doing let him study the effect of the sad excess of the drink Bill on the child-life of this country. I am not talking merely of the infantile mortality that is attributable to drink. There is a deeper wrong, and a more lasting wrong, that is inflicted upon the childhood of the nation, and through the children on the nation itself—upon our children who are ill-fed, ill-clad, ill-housed, ill-trained, through drunken mothers and through the selfishness of sodden fathers. What is the result? The nation has hundreds of thousands of those children growing up with enfeebled frames, quite incapable of bearing their allotted share of the burdens of citizenship. And what about the statistics of cruelty to children? The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children reckon that in the course of eleven years they had to deal with half a million of children who had been treated with deplorable cruelty very largely through their drunken parents. Well, now we set out to protect them, and we are called robbers! All I can say is this, that if it were robbery, I would rather be such a robber than the friend of a trade which converts the love of parents into this torture and cruelty. Then there is the crime 1699 of the land. Great Judges have declared that most of the crime that comes before them is directly traceable to drink. Magistrates and police bear the same testimony. Take also those men and women who have devoted their lives to saving the human wreckage which is tossed about. They are unanimous in their testimony as to the effect of drink. Wherever you find those poor creatures gathered together, whose brain is shattered, wherever you find human beings huddled together in loathsome squalor and wretchedness, wherever you find men living in a condition of vice and crime, they all bear testimony that drink is the prime agency in the creation of all this unsightly mass of pain and degradation. And I say that this Government would fail abjectly in its duty if, through any base fear of any force or combination of forces, they were to shrink from doing all in their power to cut out from the social organism this most malignant growth that drains the vitality of the nation.
§ *MR. LYTTELTON (St. George's, Hanover Square)I think the right hon. Gentleman must have been well aware that those of us who oppose this Bill do not oppose it because we do not recognise the evils of drunkenness. The real point of the discussion which we embarked upon last week is, Is this Bill a true and good remedy for the evils which the right hon. Gentleman has so eloquently portrayed? And the very fact that what he has called the gigantic evil—the very fact that drunkenness is admitted to be a national vice—that very fact connotes the existence of a great number of people in this country who are victims of excessive indulgence, and a great number of others who sympathise with them in that infirmity. Directly that is admitted it becomes of vital importance not to add to the large number of human beings who are already affected by this infirmity any other persons in this country who love fair play and honest dealing, because depend upon it, the whole history of the subject referred to in that book which he mentioned shows that the one result of unfair and unduly harsh legislation is to produce, and produce almost immediately, a violent reaction which 1700 does more harm to the cause of temperance which we all desire to see advanced than if measures prudent and moderate are taken for the diminution of the evil. The right hon. Gentleman has given some arguments. I promise to follow them. He, in company with the Prime Minister, has laid down what he believes to be the fundamental condition of the law with respect to this subject, and I have no quarrel with their statement of the law so far as it goes, but I say it is incomplete. They have said that no lawyer would deny that the justices have power on the application for renewal of a licence not to renew, and that if they do not renew that licence no Court in the country, in the absence of fraud or corruption, will reverse that decision. I accept that statement of the law as far as it goes, but I think both the right hon. Gentlemen confuse the power to reduce any licence with the power to reduce all licences. I say that what is true of the unit is not true of the mass. Let me give a simple example. Supposing a bench, consisting of gentlemen like the hon. Member for the Spen Valley and the hon. Member for Westmoreland, and perhaps two colleagues with prohibitionist tendencies—supposing they were to sit as licensing justices, and were to embark upon a policy of total prohibition, say, in some large town, with the avowed intention of suppressing every licence in the district: I say, in the first place, that they would be taking upon themselves the function of Parliament, and, in the next place, it is a political impossibility, and I further submit to my right hon. friend the Prime Minister, as a matter of law, that that would be reversed by the Court of the King's Bench Division.
§ MR. LEIF JONES (Westmoreland, Appleby)How if they did it without the avowed intention?
§ *MR. LYTTELTONI say the same thing would take place. I will not quote the judgments of the House of Lords, but I will put it to the Prime Minister, as a matter of law, that any bench of justices, whether they gave their reasons or not, if they instituted a system of prohibition of licences in this country would practically take 1701 upon themselves the function of Parliament, knowing perfectly well that Parliament would never sanction a system of prohibition.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEDoes the right hon. Gentleman suggest that a bench of magistrates cannot take away the only licence in a parish?
§ * MR. LYTTELTONI did not say so. I say that in a large town with, say, 100 licences, if the bench attempted to take away all those licences they would be restrained by law. I say that it would be a political impossibility. That fallacy of confusing what may be done in a particular instance with what may be done to all holders of licences has pervaded almost every speech that has been made in this House on the other side. The second fundamental error of these proposals of the Government, as I submit to the House, is this. The Government have wedded together two schemes which are absolutely incompatible. This Bill provides after the end of fourteen years notice for the destruction of licences and goodwill. Our Bill set up a mutual insurance fund which contemplated their continuance, and paving for all suppressed licences by contribution from the trade. Our Bill said no trade death without compensation. This Bill says universal slaughter after fourteen years, and the two things are incompatible. [MINISTERIAL cries Of "No."] Perhaps that word "slaughter" is metaphorical. What I mean is the taking away of the full value of the licences at the end of that period. The survivors of the Government Bill are not solaced by compensation paid by the trade; on the contrary, they are burdened by compensation which is taken from them, not compensation paid to them. The compensation is taken from the trade during fourteen years, and they do not get it at the end of the period. Surely the unnatural union of these two schemes in this Bill, humorously described by the Solicitor-General as legislation based on precedent, should be described as legislation based upon confusion of thought. We have had a statement by the Prime Minister that the Act of 1904 was incorrectly construed by Mr. Justice Ken- 1702 nedy, and that the brewers counting on trade profits should not be reckoned as bidders in a valuation or auction of licences. That proposition is so wide of the mark that his own law officers when arguing the case before Mr. Justice Kennedy, not, only thought it unworthy of being presented to the Court at all, but as I read what they said at the time conceded the precise contrary, and, indeed, I think the House will readily see that to take away as a possible bidder in auction some of the best purchasers for the commodity sold would be an absurdity. I venture to say that if I put up a horse for auction, and excluded my right hon. friend the Member for Wimbledon as a possible bidder, no one would doubt that I was inflicting on myself a grievous injustice. The next fallacy which pervaded the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was treating the time-limit as if at the end of it the state of things was going to be restored which existed before 1904. This time-limit, which I see a great many of the clergy have mistaken it to be, is not the time-limit recommended by Lord Peel and the minority of his Commission. It has often been claimed in this debate that the Government could not possibly be doing wrong, because they were giving fourteen years while Lord Peel's Commission recommended seven. That shows the same confusion of thought and the same inaccuracy of statement which has characterised a great, deal of this debate. Lord Peel recommended that the state of things at the end of seven years should be that absolute liberty should be given to the justices to do what they liked with licences. [AN HON. MEMBER: And to Parliament.] Yes, and to Parliament. Does this Bill leave such liberty to the justices? Not at all. It is made imperative by this Bill that at the end of fourteen years the whole monopoly value shall be taken; that means the value of the licence, so that you have an absolutely different thing recommended by this Bill from that which was recommended by Lord Peel, and it, is made far more onerous by the fact that along with it there is this steady drain with respect to compensation payable by the trade throughout the fourteen years. A return to the state of things before 1904 would be to 1703 subject licence-holders to the risk of reduction, but at the end of your time-limit you expose them to the certainty of destruction. The things are widely different. Now, may I briefly describe another argument of the Chancellor of the Exchequer? It formed a great part of the argument of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and particularly of the hon. Member for the Spen Valley. His argument was: The brewers have traded recklessly, and in consequence have enormously depreciated their property, but some of them have had the wit to unload half their responsibility and place it on the widow and orphan. Suppose that be true, I do not deny that some breweries have been badly managed, managed in a speculative way, and sold at inflated prices. In all trades there are similar cases. But are the people who bought the securities to be deprived of what value remains in them? Is the widow who has bought a preference share which was worth £1 and who paid £1 for it—if it has depreciated in value until it is worth only 1s. 6d., are you going to take that is. 6d. too.
§ SIR THOMAS WHITTAKERMy point is that she should only get the 1s. 6d., and not the £1.
§ *MR. LYTTELTONTake the case of the owner of a share worth Is. 6d. Does the hon. Member assume that at the end of the fourteen years it would still be worth 1s. 6d? I cannot imagine that he would suppose such a thing to be possible. The hon. Member desired to get rid of the suggestion I put to him by a somewhat suspicious device. First of all, he complained of the figures put before the House because they were the figures of experts, and he poured contempt upon experts' figures. Then he flung at the head of the House 140 balance sheets which he said experts had prepared for him, and to which he gave the weight of his own authority as an actuary. But I will accept from no one an analysis of 140 balance sheets without any particulars of them, without knowing their names or having an inspection of them. The hon. Member must be aware that, after be-littling experts, in bringing these things before the House he was putting before the 1704 House evidence that no one would accept. What are his qualifications for asking us to accept the conclusions he has arrived at from this mass of so-called evidence? The hon. Member satisfied himself that no injustice was done, and that nothing was to be apprehended by persons who had carried on their trade in a proper manner, and with proper reserves, because, he said, the reserve fund would be ample to refund them for their loss at the end of the time-limit. But the hon. Member, as a man of business, must know that a reserve fund is set up to meet the ordinary contingencies of trade, yet he thinks it fair that a reserve fund, which prudent and thrifty men have set up to meet ordinary contingencies, should be entirely absorbed in meeting a contingency which is created by himself and his friends. Was ever such an extravagant proposal put before business men? What conclusion does it lead us to? It leads us to this, that those men who set up a reserve fund, as hon. Gentlemen opposite suggest, to meet ordinary contingencies would be far worse treated than those who set up no such fund, and who have been denounced by hon. Gentlemen opposite who have enjoyed themselves by talking of rotten finance.
§ SIR THOMAS WHITTAKERHow will they be worse off
§ *MR. LYTTELTONI will tell the hon. Gentleman. I thought his acumen would have been sufficient to have enabled him to see that without my developing it. Suppose a company has set up a good reserve fund and the whole of that is taken at the end of fourteen years, the shareholders, instead of being paid off, lose it all. But in the case where the finance has been of the "rotten" kind which has been described by hon. Members, the shareholders then have the profits divided among them during the fourteen years. The result is that they have it, and the others have not.
AN HON. MEMBERDoes the right hon. Gentleman say that the whole of the reserve fund would go in the ordinary course at the end of the fourteen years?
§ *MR. LYTTELTONYes. Having dealt with the balance sheets and the reserve fund I am sorry to say I am obliged to charge the hon. Member for the Spen Valley with another fallacy, into which I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer also fell. He stated that fourteen years notice was equivalent to ten and a half years purchase.
§ SIR THOMAS WHITTAKERI said that fourteen years run was equal to ten and a half years purchase.
§ *MR. LYTTELTONYes. He then went on to say that Mr. Justice Kennedy had given ten and a half years purchase in a particular case, and the Government were only doing what an eminent Judge thought fair in the case. I am really astonished that he should have put before the House of Commons such a proposition. This Bill cancels the capital a firm possesses. Supposing the profits of a business are £1,000, and supposing ten and a half years purchase is given for that business. That would make £10,500. The proprietor would at once have the sum in his pocket. If he invested it in a concern with similar risks to those of a brewery company he would earn £1,000 a year for the next fourteen years; and how much longer? The hon. Member must see—he cannot pretend not to see—that at the end of that time though he would have earned £1,000 a year for each of the fourteen years he would still have his capital of £10,500 in his pocket at the end. I defy anyone who has considered this subject, with an elementary knowledge of what purchase means, to deny that. If ten years purchase is not given to the proprietor, but a licence, if you like, to trade fourteen years is given to him, I agree that he would make £1,000 a year for each of the fourteen years but at the end of that time he has neither capital nor licence. Therefore, in one case he is able to make an income for fourteen years and have the capital at the end, and in the other case he would have the opportunity to make an income but at the end would have no capital.
§ SIR THOMAS WHITTAKERThat is absurd.
§ *MR. LYTTELTONSo far from its being absurd, I am satisfied it is abso- 1706 lutely true. Then the Chancellor of the Exchequer repeated again and again that in this debate the complaint on this side of the House was that there was no temperance in this measure, yet there was ruin for every person in the trade. That, he said, was our argument. Let me put this, as I think, parallel case. Take a railway and give it a short notice, and say that at the end of a certain time its monopoly shall be taken away, that its running powers shall be taken away, that everybody else shall be at liberty to compete with it in the carrying trade. Traffic at the end of that time will be continually increasing, but the railway will be ruined. You do not reduce the liquor consumed, but you take away from the publicans the licence for which they have paid thousands of pounds. You take away their good-will. [A VOICE: How?] You take away their goodwill because nobody who has made a reputation as a licensed victualler can obtain anything as the result of his skill at the end of fourteen years.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEWhere do we take that away? Does the right hon. Gentleman think that at the end of fourteen years every licence is to be taken away? I do not follow that argument.
§ *MR. LYTTELTONI am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman does not follow me. No one says that every licence is to be taken away, but if he will read his own Bill he will find that at the end of fourteen years it is imperative upon the justices to take away the monopoly value of every licence. That is, of course, the value of the licence.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI am very sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman. I agree that in the Bill we do take away the monopoly value, but I tried to explain what we intended by monopoly value, and if the Bill does not carry that out, then of course, it can be made clear. Why does the right hon. Gentleman say that we take away not merely the monopoly value, which is the protection against competition, but also the good-will, which every other trader has? I should like to know.
§ *MR. LYTTELTONI say that in every case where you take away the licence you involve the good-will. If you take away the licence without compensation you commit the further injustice of taking away the good-will with it. I am perfectly ready to admit, and hon. Members may take the concession for what it is worth, that the State did make a mistake, a great mistake in former times, in granting monopoly values or, in fact, in offering monopoly values for nothing. I agree also—although I expect far more benefit for temperance from many other agencies—that a reduction of superfluous and undesirable licences is expedient. But I say that the Act of 1904 arrested and cured, so far as was just, the first mistake, namely, that of granting the monopoly value for nothing, because it provided that for the future every new licence should pay the true price or worth of the monopoly value.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEThat does not include the good-will.
§ *MR. LYTTELTONHow can there be good-will with a new licence? How can the right hon. Gentleman say that goodwill attaches to a business which is not begun? We laid an embargo on monopoly in regard to new licences and, of course there could be no such thing as goodwill. Having made this concession, I ask the House to consider the position, not of the brewer, although I think he is just as much entitled to justice as anybody else, but of the owner of the free house, who is subject to the onslaught of this Bill. He might be a man who has put his whole savings into freehold property of this kind. This Bill and the state of things which it sets up produce a fundamental conflict between what is just and what is technically law, but the actual business of the situation makes the status of an annual tenancy, such as that which the hon. Member for Spen Valley would make it, absolutely inappropriate. This tenant who has just put the savings of a lifetime into his business has, perhaps, at the instance of the magistrates, spent one or two thousand pounds in structural alterations which are absolutely inap- 1708 propriate to and inconsistent with the idea of a yearly tenancy. He has not been summoned for years, and is not, bound to be, by Brewster Sessions, to apply for a renewal of his licence. There is an absolute difference between the case of a new licence and that of the renewal of a licence. In the absence of some cause which is to be specified to him, and which must be personal to him, he need not go to Brewster Session to make application for the renewal of his licence. What has this man seen going on in the very town where his house is placed? He has seen the owner of licensed premises opposite to his own, when they have been taken for a public improvement, receive full value for the perpetuity of the licence. He has seen a street improvement made, or an insanitary area cleared, in which the public-house itself may have been unfit for human habitation, but in regard to which the owner receives the full value of his licence as if it was to be perpetual. He knows, as was pointed out by my hon. and learned friend who began this debate, that the local authorities have exacted from the holders of licences the surrender of others. That means a very large payment in money, but they make it in order that they may enjoy a sense of security in regard to the one licence they are permitted to retain. But hon. Gentlemen opposite do not care about local authorities; they scorn them; they make them subject to the revision of the three gentlemen who are to be appointed. Nor do they care about Government Departments. They only laugh at the performance of the Minister for War. They think it is a very good joke, when a property is put up for sale, that a material fact, which was peculiarly within the knowledge of the vendor, was concealed from the buyer. I know that the Prime Minister and the Minister for War are quite incapable, of course, of doing such a thing in their own private capacity; I do not suppose that either of them knew anything about that particular case; but I say most seriously to the House that if two members of a private firm had been guilty of a similar transaction, I do not think that they would have cared to face the verdict of a jury or the pronouncement of any Judge. If hon. Gentlemen opposite think 1709 nothing of local authorities or of Government departments, perhaps they will think a little more of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, that august and austere body, who appeared last year to have sold a public-house for £3,000 for a term of eighty years. They compelled the lessee to enter into obligations for £6,000 more, and he had to carry the house on so as to sell the most liquor possible, and endeavour to obtain that the longest possible hours that any house in the Kingdom could be open should be the number of hours allocated to that house. That shows the view, not of a local authority or of a Government department, but of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The owner of the free house has seen all this; he has seen the protection which is given to that property by the law and also by the administration, because the Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue had directed the collectors to assess the property as for perpetuity. He has seen the Government take this view of the property all this time, and although they have taxed him on that basis, yet that very Government which every citizen in this country would like to see the model of justice, tells him that he is entirely mistaken. If they were private individuals they would be accused of intolerable meanness in making exactions for the purpose of tribute on one scale of valuation, and when it was a question of expropriating property for their own benefit, taking another and quite a different scale of valuation. It does not stop even there. The mischief aimed at by this Bill is the redundancy of public-houses. Whose fault is this redundancy? It is the fault of the magistrates, yet the very man, the owner of the free house, who has in the last three years helped the trade to contribute £4,000,000 to facilitate reduction and diminish this redundancy, is asked in the name of justice to submit to a fresh and crushing blow. I can only say that I have endeavoured to look upon this matter not otherwise than in the public interest; I have endeavoured to consider the Bill to the best of my ability; but I cannot see the justice of it. I think it is impossible that the people of this country will ever see that it is justice. One single word about clubs. I am not going to say 1710 hard things about the Member for Appleby. I am quite aware that temperance reformers who have confronted this traffic get so full of passionate indignation against it that they are not altogether wise counsellors to follow as to the means of redressing the difficulties which beset it. But I do think that we are entitled to expect a more courageous attitude from the hon. Member, who, we are told by the Home Secretary, has spent his life, I am sure very honourably, in endeavouring to mitigate this evil, The hon. Member who has spent these long and honourable years in trying to meet this tremendous difficulty has sheltered himself behind my hon. friend the Member for the Walton Division. The hon. Member for Appleby said—
It is quite true that clubs are very mischievous and if the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Walton will produce an Amendment I will consider it.The hon. Member for the Walton Division is not a leader of the temperance movement, and I am sure that he is not a leading member of the United Kingdom Alliance. That is not a worthy or a courageous position. Those who propose what they imagine is going to be a remedy in this case are bound to propose it whole. Do not let us have the responsibility for one part which we conceive to be thoroughly bad, and do not let hon. Gentlemen in their timidity refuse to disclose on the Second Reading what they really believe to be the true and proper remedy.
§ MR. LEIF JONES (Westmoreland, Appleby)I only said that in reply to the challenge of the hon. and learned Member for Liverpool who asked us whether we should be ready to help him in amending the Bill. I assured him that all the help we could give him would be given. And we shall make our own Amendments, and I hope he will help us.
§ *MR. LYTTELTONIt is a pity that those efforts which the hon. Gentleman interrupted me to refer to have not been produced on an occasion so important. If I know anything about the subject at all, if the Bill passes in anything like its present shape it will lead 1711 to increased opportunities of drinking rather than to a diminution. The hon. Member for Spen Valley was good enough to say—
It does not lie in the mouth of you people opposite to complain of the amusements, even if they are somewhat vulgar, of clubs"—I say nothing about vulgarity.
§ SIR THOMAS WHITTAKERI did not say so.
§ *MR. LYTTELTONI withdraw—
—"of the existence of clubs and the method in which they are carried on.And I agree with him. I am glad to agree with him sometimes. I do not, speaking from this place, and knowing as I do, that the great mass of Members of this House have their own cellars and their own clubs, and most of them, partly for reasons of pleasure originally, and, lastly, for reasons of duty have placed, I think, a very severe limit upon the amount of liquor that they consume themselves—I say for people so accommodated it would be monstrous, and it would be most bitterly and justly resented by the working classes if an interference of any considerable kind was made, not with drinking clubs—that is nothing, it does not touch the question—but with the social dubs of working-men. It is absolutely impossible to deal with these clubs. How can you with any countenance go to working-men, and say: "You work hard all day, your surroundings are grey and monotonous, you may not go with your fellows into a club, play dominoes, chess, and billiards there and enjoy the refreshment which we all enjoy in our clubs."
§ *MR. LYTTELTONThe hon. Member thinks nobody says that. Then we are all agreed. If we agree that you cannot interfere with social clubs, and drinking must go on in them, I say that every public-house which you extinguish in a district in which there is a demand for drinking, and hon. Members know perfectly well that there is a desire for drinking in many places, in every case a social club 1712 will spring up, and neither this House nor any person in this country will feel himself strong enough to interfere with them. I, therefore, say that this Bill is based upon a fallacy. I have always thought myself that social measures quite different from these will do and have done a great deal towards a reduction of drinking. I am really myself fairly optimistic about the continued improvement in the country. Drinking is rapidly diminishing. Better housing and better recreation will do more in a year than such legislation as this would do in twenty. When you really have to admit that you cannot interfere with social clubs—and that is admitted on the opposite side altogether—then I say that the many injustices and wrongs which you perpetrate by the first part of this Bill are rendered absolutely useless, because there will and must grow up clubs to replace the publi-chouses which you reduce. Let me beg the House in conclusion not to identify with the cause of temperance injustice as exists in this Bill.
*MR. HERBERT ROBERTS (Denbighshire, W.)I am well aware that under existing conditions it is necessary for those who take part in this debate to be brief. I desire in the very few moments in which I shall occupy the time of the House to confine what I have to say to the attitude of those whom I specially represent in Wales towards this Bill. But before I refer very briefly to the feeling of Wales in support of this Bill there is one remark only of a general character which I desire to make in regard to the Bill. What we all desire is that through legislation we may make it possible in future for all sections in this country to unite in the promotion of practical temperance reform. The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has admitted the necessity of reduction as an important factor in any future effective temperance reform. In a debate of this kind it is well for us to try to find out points of agreement on both sides of the House, and to discover, if we can, the root cause of the lines of cleavage of opinion on both sides. The right hon. Gentleman has admitted, speaking for himself, and I think he speaks for 1713 the majority of his Party, that there is a general consensus of opinion as regards the necessity for further reduction. The root cause, I think, which divides the two sides of the House in their attitude towards this Bill is the element of property. I am not going to dwell even for a moment on the many aspects of that problem, but until we get rid in some way or other—until we change the present situation and get rid of the political issue from the sphere of temperance effort, it will be impossible for us to make any very great advance on the lines of temperance reform. To my mind this is the great achievement of this Bill. I believe when it has had time to work, it will be the means of getting rid of this political issue from the sphere of licensing. That will be of enormous value, because it will put an end to the alliance between the interests behind the trade and one political Party in the State. I do not impute any conscious motive in this matter. I know a great many Members opposite deplore this connection, but at the same time we have to deal with facts, and so long as this continues I believe it will be impossible for us to get rid of this political issue, and there will be a barrier in front of all real temperance progress. My main desire in rising is to say one or two words with regard to the attitude of Wales in reference to this Bill. The Prime Minister when introducing the Bill admitted the fact, which we have all known for many years, that temperance opinion in Wales is more advanced than in other parts of the country, and the people of Wales appreciate the importance of that statement, coming from the lips of the Prime Minister. It is unnecessary, I think, for me to refer in more than a sentence or two to the proofs of that proposition as they have been presented from time to time to the House of Commons. The first proof I would advance as to the public opinion of Wales on licensing matters is that ever since 1868—for forty years—at every general election there has been returned an overwhelming number of Members identified with the views of the country upon temperance reform. Secondly, I would advance the fact that in 1881 the people of Wales demanded 1714 Sunday closing, and that demand resulted in the passing of the Welsh Sunday Closing Act of that year. Further, in 1889 there was another test as to the opinion of Wales in reference to Sunday closing which was brought about through the inquiry of the Welsh Sunday Closing Commission. There, again, we have in the unanimous recommendations of that Commission evidence that Wales at that time was unalterably attached to the continuance of the Welsh Sunday Closing Act. Then, and this is the last proof I shall bring before the House, we have the fact that to-day in this House all the Members for Wales have been returned to support the demand for the special provisions in the Bill relating to Wales. I think this is a political fact, if not unique, almost without precedent. There are two points on which there are special provisions relating to Wales. The first is the extension of the Welsh Sunday Closing Act to the county of Monmouth. For many years it has been the desire of the people of Monmouthshire to obtain the benefits of the Welsh Sunday Closing Act. In 1899 the Peel Commission unanimously reported in favour of such extension, and we have to-day all the Members for the county in favour of this extension, and we have also the decisive vote of the majority of the Monmouth County Council and of all the representatives of public bodies in the county. The advantages of extending Sunday Closing to Monmouthshire are beyond dispute. The County of Monmouth is a part of Wales in feeling, race, and history, and for the purposes of education and local affairs it has already been connected with Wales. The great majority of the people of that county welcome this Sunday Closing provision. The Bill also grants to the people of Wales and Monmouth immediate larger local option powers. In regard to the principle of popular control Wales has for many generations expressed itself with no uncertain voice. At every election for years local option has been one of the foremost points in the political programme of Wales, and in 1891 and 1893 Bills dealing with this subject passed through the Second Reading stage in this House. It is not possible to go into the precise effect of the 1715 granting of these larger local option powers to the people of Wales, but it will mean a substantial reduction of licences in Wale and Monmouth during the running of the time-limit. With regard to clubs I do not for a moment deny that grave difficulties have arisen from the establishment of merely drinking clubs, but I wish to point out that this has not been the result or effect of Sunday closing in the Principality. In Wales the proportion is one club to every 7,400 of the population, whereas in England there is one club to every 4,600 There is a very strong feeling in Wales, which is a Sunday closing area, that it may be necessary to have a certain amount of special treatment for clubs. I admit that the clauses of this Bill are a distinct advance upon the present condition of the law. I am prepared even to say that I do not think those who are interested in temperance reform in the country have sufficiently realised the extent of the powers which will be granted to the licensing justices in the provisions as they now stand in the Bill. But these are Committee points. When we come to the Committee stage of the Bill I feel sure the Government will be prepared to consider any practical suggestion in the direction of strengthening these clauses. I wish to refer only to two out of the many important issues which are at stake in the passing of this Bill. The carrying of this measure will show that the Government think more of what they deem to be the good of the country than political expediency. That is one of the brightest signs in the present political situation. I see in this Bill the possibility of a new chapter of temperance reform. The reason we now stand in a different position with regard to hope for the future in this movement is that the temperance question has become a vital one, and there is now a chance of uniting all sections of opinion in the country desirous of doing something for the good of the people on the side of practical, effective, temperance reform. I can say without any hesitation that Wales heartily and unitedly supports the Government in regard to this Bill. Wales sees in this measure a new hope, a new opportunity, and a new responsibility, and her people will show the Government by an effective administration 1716 not only of the general provisions but also the special provisions relating to Wales that these proposals have not been made in vain.
§ LORD R. CECIL (Marylebone, E,)The speech to which we have just listened is unquestionably one of considerable interest, but it shows clearly the difficulty we are necessarily under in discussing the question of the Second Reading of this Bill. Hon. Members opposite have been engaged in pointing out that they alone are the recipients and possessors of the moral sense of the country; that they represent the light, and all who are opposed to them represent darkness. That must be a very consoling opinion to hon. Members opposite, and I trust they will be able to bear the shock that awaits them when they court the opinion of their fellow countrymen. I only propose on this occasion to deal with what, after all, are the two main principles of the Bill, namely, the question of the reduction of licences and the question of the time-limit. I think the first of these principles can be dealt with briefly. It has been very strongly urged on the other side of the House that a reduction of licences must necessarily mean an increase of temperance in this country. I have waited four days, and still await any evidence that that proposition is true. The only case cited is that of Liverpool. No one disputes, and no one has ever thought of disputing, that you may grant so large a number of licences in a crowded district as to militate against the cause of temperance. But the only question that arises in regard to this Bill is whether when you have got the proper proportion of licences to population any further reduction of licences is likely to lead to an increase in temperance. That is the only question you have got to consider. It is no use telling us what happened when you had free trade in licences in Liverpool, for it does not follow that after you have reduced licences from a wildly excessive number to a moderate number you promote temperance by a still further reduction. The arguments of the Under-Secretary to the Home Department on this point were really not worthy of him. He picked out two or three towns or groups of 1717 towns about which statistics are given and made a comparison by which he sought to establish some kind of connection between the number of licences granted and convictions for drunkenness. I have not heard anything in this debate which takes us further than the statement made on the authority of the Government in the Licensing Statistics for 1907, namely, that an increase in licensed premises does not necessarily lead to an increase in the convictions for drunkenness. That seems to me to be a sober and accurate statement of the relation between licences and drunkenness, and I have not yet heard anything which induces me to think we can carry the matter further than that by the evidence. Assuming for a moment that it is desirable in the interests of temperance to reduce licences, I desire to say a word about the licensee, and whether you are affording fair compensation by your provision for compensating those whose licences are suppressed. What are the facts with regard to this point? It is admitted that the effect of your proposed legislation will be to diminish the amount paid by way of compensation to something like one-fifth of what is now being paid. That is not disputed, and it cannot be disputed after the facts cited by my hon. and learned friend the Member for Kingston in his masterly speech at the beginning of this debate. Is it really open to dispute that you are going to reduce the amount of compensation paid—I do not care whether it is a fifth or a fourth—to something infinitely less than that paid before? The answer given by the hon. Member for the Spen Valley division, and with a great deal more florid oratory by the Chancellor of the Exchequer this afternoon, is that it is all because public-houses are assessed too low.
§ SIR THOMAS WHITTAKERHear, hear.
§ LORD R. CECILI am glad that I have appreciated the hon. Member's argument rightly. Does it not throw a lurid light on the perception of justice which prevails on this subject? He says—
Because you are assessed too low, therefore, we are not going to give you a fair price for your property.1718 If it does not mean that, what does it mean?
§ SIR THOMAS WHITTAKERAssess at the proper figure.
§ LORD R. CECILThe hon. Member seems to think that public-houses are assessed on different principles from those which are applied to other industrial concerns. The hon. Member is completely mistaken. There seems to me to be confusion in the minds of sonic hon. Members as to what assessment really is. It is not a tax on the profits of a business. That is the delusion which runs through the whole of the argument of hon. Members opposite. If they do not say so, I am at a loss to explain their argument at all. You are assessed on the value of the house and not on the value of the business. There is a good deal to be said for something in the nature of a municipal income-tax, but we have not got it, and therefore it is quite plain that to take the assessable value as the value for the purposes of compensation is to take a completely misleading standard. I see the hon. and learned Member for Reading here. Let me give an illustration from our own experience. Both he and I occupy chambers in the Temple. I am not aware of their relative rental value, but assume that they are about the same. But the profits of the business which he transacts is out of all proportion to the profits I am able to make. If we were going to expropriate the hon. and learned Gentleman, we should have to compensate him on quite a different footing from that which I am afraid would be just compensation in my own case. It is precisely the same when you come to deal with any of these industries. Therefore, to take the assessable value and say that it is the basis of compensation when you are going to take away property is to take an entirely misleading basis. I wish to make it clear in specific terms to the House that I do not recognise two standards of compensation. By compensation I mean payment which shall recoup a person injured for the injury that is being done to him. It must be complete solatium, complete re-integration and compensation for the injury 1719 done. What you have to do by this Bill is to provide a scale which will carry that out. Therefore, whether it be desirable to reduce licences further or not, I feel very confident that the House, when it comes to consider the scale on which that reduction is to be carried out, if it be proposed to deal with this trade with fairness and justice, will not adhere to the scale in the Bill.
I desire to say a word or two about the time-limit, which is the other main principle of the measure. There are, as I understand it, not less than three different meanings, or, at all events, three different objects, with which the time-limit is proposed to be enacted by those who are in favour of that principle. In the first place it is said that it is desirable to restore to the justices their freedom of action. If that means that it is desirable to place the country with regard to licensing in the position it occupied before 1904, I for one am against that proposal altogether. I have never been able, with all my Toryism, to bring myself to admire the system of licensing which prevailed before 1904. The only defence of it, so far as I know, is that it had existed for a very long time. Surely the great object of licensing should be the impartial and equal exercise of jurisdiction which would produce somewhat similar results all over the country, so that there should be no room for thinking by one set of traders that they were being treated less fairly than another set of traders in another part of the country. What were the facts before 1904? You had in a great many instances magistrates on the bench who had great reluctance to take away licences altogether, and in practice licences were renewed whether they were redundant or not, provided that the licence-holders were not guilty of any offence against the licensing laws. But in just a few cases, where you had very earnest and righteous temperance reformers on the bench, you had licences swept away on a wholly different scale. I regard that as a thoroughly bad system, and I am not afraid to say so in this House, and anything that would restore that system appears to me to be a thoroughly retrograde step. Another object of the time-limit is that it 1720 is thought desirable as a first step towards local option. The Prime Minister was good enough to give an answer at Question-time from which it is clear—and it is a very important matter—that unless further legislation takes place at the end of fourteen years a system of local option will automatically come into operation in the country. I say deliberately that, if that is the effect of the Bill, it is a very bad piece of legislation indeed. What could be worse than for this House to say that fourteen years hence a system of local option will be introduced without regard to the state of affairs then existing? Surely that is far too important for the House to pretend to prejudge in that matter. It is for those who sit in this House then to say whether such a measure should be passed or not. I cannot go on arguing this afternoon whether local opinion is desirable or not, but if we are to enact it at all it should be after full consideration of the circumstances prevailing at the time it is enacted and not by a side wind of this description. But these two objects are not generally put forward by the authors of the Bill. Both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Solicitor-General either made no reference, or only slight reference, to local option. They said that the great object was the recovery by the State of the monopoly value. So far as I am concerned, if by monopoly value is meant that it is a desirable thing in itself that a special pecuniary privilege should not be conferred by the licence upon the licence-holder, I agree that it is desirable that that should not be done. I say quite frankly that a privilege of that kind should not be conferred upon the trade. It is necessarily an objectionable thing. I feel that very strongly. We have heard, and I must say, so far as I am conearned, I have heard with some impatience, a number of criticisms directed against the agitation which the brewers have carried on, or are said to have carried on, against the Bill. It is easy to criticise in such a matter as that, but hon. Members who criticise ought to remember that those engaged in this trade regard themselves as threatened with financial ruin, and it is absurd to take this or that instance from this or that speech made under that kind of provocation and say: "This is really 1721 not quite in good taste. We cannot approve of statements of that kind," or observations of that description. If you are seized by the throat by a footpad in a dark lane—[MINISTERIAL cries "Oh!"]—I am not accusing hon. Gentlemen opposite of being footpads, but if you are threatened with a great danger, whatever it may be, you seize the first weapon that comes to your hand, and you do not think too carefully whether the method of self-defence you employ is that which is sanctioned by the Queensberry rules, which regulate such things, I only say that because I do not wish it to be thought for a moment that I associate myself with the criticism which I think has been unfairly directed to some of the things which have been said and done in the course of the agitation. I agree that it is an unfortunate state of affairs that the great pecuniary interests which are necessarily affected by the acts of the central Government should regard it as a necessary duty to take part in political agitation, not on general grounds, but in order to defend their own particular interests. If the proposals in this Bill were merely confined to removing that state of affairs and restoring to the State the monopoly value of the licences on fair terms and without any injury to the trade I should not myself be opposed to them at all. Perhaps the House will pardon me making reference to some observations which were made by a relative of my own, Lord Hugh Cecil, in a debate in 1904. He is reported to have stated that there was something to be said for a time-limit, and that, at any rate, it was possible to engraft a time-limit on the legislation of 1904. I have taken the trouble to read that speech and I do not think that anybody sitting on this side would differ from it for a moment. What did it amount to? All he laid down in the earlier part of the speech was that a time-limit; and a compensation-limit were inconsistent; that if you had a time-limit, you could not go on having a compensation-limit it should be a limit of twenty or thirty years, or something which would be a perfectly fair time to enable the trade not to suffer injury from such legislation. I agree, and I think we all agree that no these terms there would be 1722 no great objection to such a time-limit, or some similar proposal which would produce a similar result provided that no injustice was done to the individual. What does the Government proposal amount to? It is a great mistake to suppose that it will affect nothing more than the monopoly value. It is admittedly the first step towards a much larger measure—to deprive the licensed trade, not only of the monopoly value, but of all their property in liences. It is admittedly a confiscatory measure. Take again the hon. Member for Spen Valley. He says that the effect of it would be—and he gave most elaborate figures to prove it—to deprive the licensed trade of half the value of its capital at the end of fourteen years. He takes the capital value at £200,000,000 and taking the monopoly value alone the effect of the Bill will be to deprive the trade of £100,000,000. Now, the moment that is admitted it appears to me to be quite futile to discuss with great elaboration, as the Chancellor of the Exchequor did, what is the exact legal position of the licence-holders. You are going to deprive them of £100,000,000 at the end of fourteen years. [MINISTERIAL cries of "No."] That is what the hon. Members for Spen Valley said. What is the use of talking of the £100,000,000 representing merely an expectation of a property right? One hundred millions is a hundred millions; and if you are going to take it you are going to deprive the previous owners of that sum, unless indeed the Government are prepared to go as far as the hon. Member and reject all proposals for compensation altogether. I could understand a Bill based on the theory that you were not taking away any property at all, and that, therefore, the license-holders are not entitled to compensation and that they have £100,000,000 which you are going to take from them, then the whole question arises, and in fact the effect of your legislation, as the hon. Member for Spen Valley said, will be to deprive them of that money. And how does the hon. Member for Spen Vally meet the difficulty? He has an astounding theory which I will not deal with it at length because 1723 the hon. and learned Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, has done so; but the suggestion is that as long as you only take the reserve fund of a company you will do it no harm; if you take it in your stride, you give it all the compensation you need. That seems to me to be a curious mental attitude when you are dealing with companies or individuals. You may take it if you call it a reserve fund without doing very much harm, but if you call it the savings of a company and take it then you do harm. Let us suppose that a private individual has £2,000 a year, and he divides among his shareholders £1,000 and puts aside and invests £1,000 as a reserve fund. Would you not view with astonishment a financial proposal by which the State for one purpose or another proposed to sieze the whole of the savings of that private individual? That is precisely what you are going to do if you take the reserve funds of a company. You may take the savings of a good company, but when you come to a bad or struggling company without any reserve fund, you will be taking the income of the shareholders to the extent of £100,000,000. We are told that these companies have been badly financed. Are you going to fine brewery companies £100,000,000 because you think they have been badly financed? That is the meaning of it. What does it matter that the directors of brewery companies have cheated their shareholders? I put it in the boldest language. How does that defend the view that you take? The hon. Member for Spen Valley says that it is only a contribution of £3,000,000, £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 a year for this great and wealthy interest. I understand him to mean that it would be a kind of taxation, but it is absolutely distinct from a contribution by individuals to the general purposes of the State. The whole essence of a tax is that it should be as far as possible a contribution of equal sacrifice on the part of all affected by it. But that is not the proposal in the Bill; and if that proposal is not confiscation I do not know the meaning of the word. You propose to take the money of a special set of people who are not to have any advantage from the Government of the country at 1724 all.[MINISTERIAL cries of "No."] It is not for the purpose of taxation at all, but in order to carry out a great moral reform. If you are to hold that this money is a mere form of taxation, the same argument can be used for any form of confiscation. I do not think that it would be an exaggeration to say that it would be the most tyrannical action any Government ever attempted in this country or in any country in the world. Let us understand what you are going to do. On the admission of the hon. Member for Spen Valley you are going to deprive a certain trade interest of £100,000,000. [An Hon. MEMBER on the MINISTERIAL BENCHES: No.] Yes, that is what the hon. Member for Spen Valley says—at the end of fourteen years.
AN HON. MEMBER (on the MINISTERIAL Benches)It is to pay the debenture-holders. The reserve fund is only applied to paying-off the debentures.
§ LORD R. CECILThe hon. Member is entirely mistaken. Even that only applies to a small number of companies. The great mass of companies would have to meet this appropriation without any reserve fund at all. You are going to take this money from the debenture holders or the shareholders not for the purposes of State, but for the purposes of a moral reform. There is only one possible explanation of a proposal of this kind. The authors of this Bill do not regard the members of this trade as entitled to common justice. I have looked carefully through almost all the speeches delivered in favour of the Bill, and running right through them there is an undercurrent very apparent—especially in the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—that this trade is a great force for evil in the country and that in dealing with it it would be absurd and indeed wicked to treat it with ordinary justice. [MINISTERIAL cries of "No."] What otherwise was the meaning of the hon. Member for Spen Valley's quoting the slave trade, and saying that the slave owners were not compensated? The meaning of the hon. Member for Spen Valley was that we are treating the trade much more generously than we treated the slave owners; and that the fact remained that 1725 the licensed trade is not entitled to as good treatment as the slave owners.
§ *Mr. LUPTON (Lincolnshire, Sleaford)made an observation which was not fully audible.
§ *MR. SPEAKEROrder, order. If the noble Lord is interrupted so frequently he will never reach the end of his remarks.
§ LORD R. CECILThe hon. Member generally has the courage of his convictions, and only said aloud what a great many Members opposite are thinking. What other meaning can be attached to these tremendous denunciations of liquor with which we are all agreed, but which have no meaning in this debate unless it is to show that the Government is justified in treating this trade in a way they would never think of treating other trades in the country? I take another view. I thing that just in proportion as you consider yourselves as representatives of Light dealing with the Powers of Darkness; just in proportion as you are trying to carry out a reform to elevate the masses, just in that proportion you are bound to behave with a scrupulous adherence too justice. I adhere to the old Hebrew prophet's denunciation of robbery for a burnt offering. By all means if you think it right to offer a great sacrifice upon the altar of temperance, do it, but pay for it yourself. I think that the episcopal leaders, or any other leaders, are making a very grave mistake if they are lending their countenance to the proposition that, because you dealing with a trade to which great evils attach, you are entitled to mete out to that trade a lower form of justice than to any other trade in the country.
§ *SIR RANDAL CREMER (Shoreditch, Haggerston)The proposals of the Bill which have been most severely dealt with are the time-limit, compensation, and working-mens's clubs. It is in regard to the latter that I wish to address for a few minutes some observations to the House, and I think my justification for doing so will be admitted when I state that I have been for twenty-three years 1726 a member of a workmen's club. These clubs have been so much maligned because, as I think, they are so little understood by the House, and if hon. Members had more practical acquaintance with them they would deal with them much more tenderly than they have dealt with them during the course of this debate. With regard to the questions of time-limit and of compensation, I do not propose to say very much, although they are very important features of the Bill, but in reference to workmen's clubs I think I have some claim to speak on their behalf. There are 7,000 workmen's clubs in the United Kingdom, and 1,108 of them belong to what is called the Club and Institute Union. I am only speaking on behalf of the affiliated clubs, which have a membership of 331,275, so that I have a considerable constituency to speak for. I admit that some workmen's clubs are by no means ideal institutions, but that they are an enormous improvement upon the public-house is the point for which I am contending. If a man or a woman enters a public-house and attempts to rest there or remain for five minutes he or she must drink. They cannot stop there without spending money and drinking, but in a club they can remain just as long as they please without the expenditure of a single farthing; all the difference between "may" and "must", between "permission" and "compulsion." I therefore assert without any fear, not of contradiction, but of disproof, that the workmen's club is an enormous improvement upon the public-house. During the twenty-three years that I have been a member of this workmen's club I never seen a member drunk on or off the premises. I do not say that there have not been instances of the kind, but I have never seen them, and I have visited that club hundreds of times, at all times of the day up to eleven and twelve o'clock, when it closes. What public-house can be cited where no instance of drunkenness has been witnessed by people living in the neighbourhood? I have given the case of a club, where we had at one time nearly 2,000 members. It has existed for nearly forty years, so it is not one of the mushroom clubs which have sprung up for drinking purposes. It has had a long existence, 1727 it is one of the oldest clubs in London and one of the best managed as well as the most numerous in its members. There is also the advantage in favour of the club against the public-house, although I do not suppose that this will commend itself to the consideration and support of my temperance friends, that you get a purer and cheaper article in the workmen's club than you do in a public-house. There is also a better moral atmosphere in the club. Anyone who has visited a public-house bar and heard the kind of conversation which goes on there knows perfectly well—if he has any acquaintance with a workmen's club—that if such language were repeated in a club the member using it would be expelled if he continue you not only "may" drink if you please in d to use language of that kind. So that club against "must" in a public-house, but you get a better and purer article and you are also surrounded with a very much better moral atmosphere than you would I have in the public-house. There are many other advantages connected with the workmen's club as against the public-house with which I will not trouble the House, but I appeal to Members who are present and who do me the favour to listen to what I say to judge of these clubs with an open mind, and not to be influenced by prejudices and statements which have come to be regarded by Members inside, and people outside the House as gospel truth, to the effect that there is an enormous amount of drinking which goes on in these clubs which ought to be put down. I do not know whether hon. Members have studied carefully the Bill of 1902. I was a member of the Grand Committee which had that Bill under consideration, and it was due to the tact and judgment of the late Lord, then Mr., Ritchie, that that Bill was passed through that Committee and through this House. At that time the clubs for whom I am speaking were good enough to entrust me with their interests, and I had occasion to thank Mr. Ritchie when the Bill reached its Third Reading for the consideration and courtesy with which he had met us He did what no one else had been able to do, although for several years attempts had been made to pass a Bill through this 1728 House for the better regulation of clubs and I have no hesitation in saying that that Bill has done a great deal for the purification of club life in this country. One of the great objects Mr. Ritchie had in view, in which I cordially supported him, was to put an end to the bogus clubs and the gambling hells that were then to be found in London and the country. What effect has that Act had? It has had the effect of getting struck off the register of 302 clubs most of them of the character to which I have referred. I am sorry to say that a few are still to be found that have not been removed from the register, but they would have been had the local authorities done their duty and taken steps to prevent the continuance of these debasing institutions. I do not say that the whole of the 302 clubs were struck off the register because of their illegal practices, as a few of them ceased to exist and were removed from the register in consequence, but the clubs for whom I am speaking contend that so much good work in the direction of purification has been accomplished that there is no necessity at the present moment for further legislation on the subject. If the Act of 1902 is continued and rigidly enforced by the local authorities in another year or two I believe every bogus club and every gambling hell will have been got rid of and the process of purification be practically complete. That is the first point that we urge, and I think the Government have made a mistake in overloading their Bill by introducing new proposals in regard to clubs. There were difficulties enough in the way of passing this Bill without burdening it with a proposal of that kind. If, however, there was any necessity for further legislation on the subject it might have been done next year by amending the Act of 1902. We contend, however, that there is very little if any necessity for further legislation in regard to workmen's clubs. But if the Government were convinced that there was an absolute necessity for further legislation on the subject and that that legislation should be embodied in the present Bill they might have made it prospective instead of retrospective, 1729 because the clubs that exist to-day with few exceptions are of such a character that no further interference is required on their behalf. As evidence in support of my contention I will quote a few particulars of few clubs. I take the club with which I have been personally connected for twenty-three years and which has been in existence for forty years. The hon. Member for Liverpool said the clubs were increasing in numbers and members. This is not our experience in London, it is rather the reverse. The club I am alluding to has a membership of 1,499, whereas a few years ago we had nearly 2,000 members. Our drink bill, which includes spirits, beer and minerals and also tobacco and cigars, amounted for the last year to £3 1s. 3d. per member. I have taken four clubs from the east, west, north, and south, I have given no preference to any particular district. The one in the east which I have quoted is the Borough of Hackney Club. That at Hammersmith the other end of London has a membership of 616, and there the expenditure per head of the members upon spirits, beer, minerals, tobacco, and cigars is £4 17s. 2d., I take another, which has the largest number of members in London, the Mildmay Radical Club and Association, in Stoke Newington. It has a membership of 1,622, and they spend per head upon drink, etc., £314s. 11d. The fourth, in the south, is the Hatcham Liberal Club, with a membership of 521, and its drink bill is at the rate of £4 3s. 6d. per head per year. The average expenditure per week per member in the 1,108 affiliated clubs upon beer, spirits, minerals, tobacco and cigars amounts to 1s. 2d. Members will admit that that is a very trifling; amount, and it is only because I wish to disabuse hon. Members' minds of their prejudices that I quote these figures. I say without fear of contradiction that a man who goes to a public-house often spends more in the course of one visit than a member of these clubs spends in a whole week. The clubs are therefore a great improvement upon public-houses, and I should be sorry to see them interfered with because of the beneficial change they are effecting in the drinking habits of the people. What would be the effect on many single workmen if these 1730 clubs did not exist? When I first came to London as an operative joiner I had no friends or home comforts, and was in the position in which hundreds of thousands of workmen in London and our big towns are to-day, a single man lodger. There were no workmen's clubs in those days, and a workmen had no alternative but to spend his evenings either in his dreary lodgings, the streets, or the public--houses. What is a man to do, when out of work and walking about the streets looking for employment all day. What is he to do in the evening. Is he to go to the public-house where he must drink, or into a club which he can join for 2d. or 3d. a week and smoke his pipe and talk to his fellow members without spending a penny—even if he has it to spend. What will be his position if the clubs are harrassed and penalised out of existence. There is one other club I will refer to that has 670 members, and is frequently referred to as the best club in London. What do we spend in this club, and I commend these figures to hon. Members and friends of temperance in order that they may consider whether they will bring "the best club in London" within the provisions of this Bill. I have taken these returns from the balance sheet issued by the Kitchen Committee, and I find the drink bill of this House from 3rd February to 20th July, 1907—five months—was £4,846 11s. 10d., or an average per member for the five months of £7 4s. 8d. So that if the House sat for twelve months and my calculations for the workmen's clubs were for twelve months, the rate of expenditure per member for that period would, exclusive of minerals and cigars, amount to £17 17s. 1½d. as against an average per member in the four workmen's clubs I have quoted of £3 19s. 2,id. including tobacco and cigars.
§ MR. MARKHAM (Nottinghamshire, Mansfield)The total amount of whiskey consumed in the smoke-room of this House amounts to three bottles a week. You can get that from Collins.
§ *SIR RANDAL CREMERI am quoting from the balance sheet of the Kitchen Committee.
§ MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR (Liverpool, East Toxteth)Are strangers included in both case?
§ *SIR RANDAL CREMERYes, I have included strangers and friends in both cases, and, from my experience in previous Parliaments I believe, that friends, many of them of the other sex, were in the past, largely responsible for such heavy expenditure. ["Oh!"] But so far as this Parliament is concerned, I admit, and I say it advisedly, and gladly, that I believe this is the soberest Parliament that has ever sat in St. Stephen's. But it is said there is still an amount of drinking that takes place in workmen's clubs that ought to be put an end to. I have already admitted they are by no means ideal institutions, but I say they are a great improvement upon public-houses and that they might well be let alone. I am sorry that the Government have tacked on to this Bill the clauses referring to clubs, as I believe they have thereby increased their difficulties in getting this Bill through Parliament, and believing that the Bill generally is a beneficient measure. I am sincerely anxious to see it passed into law as soon as possible. I have only one more word to say with regard to confiscation. I have listened to almost every speech that has been made upon the subject. Attempts have been made to frighten us by the repeated use of this word "confiscation" I am not afraid of it. The practices of the ground landlords of London have familiarised us with the process. I have recently asked questions in this House concerning the practice of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, and other Departments of the State who deal with property, and I find they all act alike. I have known several instances in London, on the estates of the Duke of Westminster, Lord Portman, the Duke of Norfolk and Lord Southampton, where the leases having expired, public-houses, shops and dwelling houses have been pulled down without a penny of compensation being given. Instances are continually occurring where public-houses are closed and tradesmen, who have spent considerable sums on improving their premises have found themselves deprived of their means of livelihood, and when their time-limit—the lease—expired they did not get a farthing compensation from their ground landlords. Such repeated instances of confiscation 1732 by ground landlords long ago led me to the conclusion that what the ground landlord has a right to do, what Government Departments have a right to do, this House has a right to do, and I shall vote for the Bill.
§ MR. HARWOOD (Bolton)I should like to adopt the words of the last speaker and say I should not intervene in this debate if I thought any words of mine would militate against the passing of this Bill. I wish very much to see it pass. But during this debate I have felt inclined to doubt whether this Bill is what it professes to be, namely, a Licensing Bill. I think if the Government had gone to the country, first, on the plain issue that, as everybody acknowledges, there were too many drinking shops, and said, "We wish you to help us to do away with the superfluous ones on fair terms," and, secondly, on the plain issue of whether the monopoly granted by the nation belonged to the nation, and could be resumed by the nation, the country would have gone with them. If our temperance friends of thirty years ago had been a little more reasonable we should certainly have had this change then, because that question was asked at that time, but the temperance reformers of that day would not listen to it. I am quite certain that on those two issues the whole country would have supported the Government, and it was because they were not put to the country in this way that we are now dealing with this, the most difficult subject with which we have ever had to deal. It is a subject which deeply stirs the heart with most passionate enthusiasm, and yet it is one that cannot be settled except by the most calm consideration. There are two sets of people concerned—one who would do away with all licensed houses if they could because they consider that they are wholly evil and the other, to which I belong, who acknowledge in spite of all the evil that has taken place that the public-house is a good institution. I am rather of Mr. Johnson's opinion, that a public-house is a place where you can be quite sure they were glad to see you come and sorry to see you go away. But whether that be so 1733 or not, we must keep our heads and our hearts calm, and not allow our heads to be dominated too much by our hearts. We all, who work among the poor, know the awful evils of the drink traffic. But we must acknowledge that it is not merely for one class of people that this House legislates. We have to legislate for the mass of the people, and, as one who lives among them, as one who employs a good many of them, who has lived in close touch with them for many years, I venture to say that it is most unjust if you give the impression that they are an intemperate people. The greatest change which has occurred in my life time has been the spread of sobriety amongst the mass of working men. In my own part of the country, and in my own trade, drunkenness is quite the exception. I speak for thousands of people amongst whom I live, and whose lives I know quite well. When I get resolutions on this matter, speaking of the overwhelming temptations to drink, I say that they are not overwhelming. It is quite true that a great many people yield to them, but the causes are to be found—and here I sympathise with some of my Socialist friends—in the evils which cause that yielding to temptation. And the cure will have to be found for those evils. You want better housing, better feeding of children, and better lives. I ask myself, if whole classes have become temperate in my lifetime, why the causes which have effected that change cannot be made to operate in a similar manner on other classes. Whatever may be our own private view of this matter, whatever our own feelings about the traffic, public-houses will continue. No Government dare stand up in this House and say that they will do away with them. If it did, it would not live twenty-four hours. Therefore you have got to face the facts. The question is, how best can we deal with the problem? I think we can agree about three things in regard to public-houses. First, that there are too many of them; secondly, that, a great many of them are too bad; thirdly—and I personally; can agree—that the liquor is too bad and that we must have control of the public-houses. I want this Bill from its business side, because it deals with these three problems. The poorness 1734 of public-houses is caused partly by the fact that there are too many of them. If there were fewer they could afford to be better. Therefore, in my own neighbourhood I would do away, not with one-third but with one-half, not because I am opposed to public-houses, but because I want better public-houses. Cannot those who want better public-houses, and those friends who want no public-houses, seek a common ground of agreement, so that whatever public-houses remain may be good? I think that would be a fair ground to act upon, and one on which we might do something. As to the second point, about the liquor being too bad, perhaps the greatest change in the liquor trade for centuries has come from the tied-house system. I believe that this Bill is largely the consequence of that disastrous change. It is a change which has done more to deprive the public-house of its character and associations than any other change which has taken place in the last two centuries. You have sown the wind and you are reaping the whirlwind. I approve of the Bill of the Government because it gives us hope of dealing with that evil. The third point is that of getting control of the public-houses. The terms of that control I know will have to be discussed, but at any rate we can agree that we shall never have a right settlement until we have control of the public-houses. Whether we shall run them is a question I shall not discuss now; but we must get them into our hands, and we will never be able to deal with the evils of the tied-house system until we have done so. Therefore, I appeal to all those who are temperance advocates, and also those who are in favour of public-houses, to see whether we cannot agree upon this common ground, that we ought to reduce the number of public-houses, and that we ought to have ultimate control over them. These are the main points. All' the others are merely leather and prunella. I wish the Bill had been confined to these points, because I believe then it would have been better received by the country. But it is the feelings, prejudices and passions which have been called into force by these small side issues which jeopardise the Bill, and are the real ground upon 1735 which we are threatened with all those dreadful electoral results mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon. I venture to offer the Government two suggestions which, in the spirit of the remarks I have made, may help the passing of the Bill. As to the reduction of the number of public-houses, at any rate we can agree upon this, that the people who are put out of their businesses ought to be treated fairly. The English nation is more than a fair, it is a sentimental nation, and if you violate its sense of generosity and fairness, which is one of the abiding features of the English people, catastrophe will follow. If once the public gets the idea that you are being mean with a great class of people, then farewell to any hopes of passing this Bill. However you may like or not like this trade, you must remember that it is a trade which has been called into being by the State. The State has specially given a licence for it; it gives it special countenance; therefore, the State is bound to deal with it, I do not say with special generosity, but at any rate according to the common principles of fairness such as commend themselves to the masses of the people. I am quite certain that if the Government could convince the people of England that those who are being put out of the trade are going to be treated fairly and even generously the whole difficulty on that point would drop. I would ask the Home Secretary: Are you sure, in adhering to the principle of assessment, that you are working on the right lines? I do not think you are. The principle of assessment is utterly discredited in this matter. All the statistics which were given by my hon. and learned friend owe their power to the ridiculous assessments that have gone on for so long, and to public-houses having been absurdly under-assessed in the past. The consequence is that the principle and machinery of assessment are utterly discredited. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, said something about the Inland Revenue viewing these licences as things having a value in perpetuity.
§ MR. LYTTELTONI said that Sir Algernon West, Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, instructed his collectors to value licences as if they were perpetual.
§ MR. HARWOODThose instructions with regard to licences are on no different lines from those applied to death duties and other things. If the valuer comes to value a picture, a Cooper for example, it does not fetch a fifth of what it did. The Inland Revenue takes it at what could be got for it, and it takes a licence at what it would fetch now. They have a perfect right to claim duty on the value of the thing now. But to say that because there is renewal of a licence, therefore it is a licence in perpetuity has no ground in common sense. Would it not be possible for the House to institute some form of valuing these businesses which are to be done away with, so that the country would feel quite sure that a perfectly independent organisation will value them on the principle on which every other business is valued? If the Legislature chooses to do away with some public-houses I do not see why they should not be treated in the same way as other businesses. The public do not believe that assessment is a good plan, because the assessments have been ridiculous. The Government say: "We will not take advantage of the ridiculous assessments that you have had so far, but we will give you a year to put them right". But a scramble of that sort before the authorities who have already started those ridiculous assessments will not satisfy the public. They must be made to know that there will be some means by which these businesses, quite apart front all other traditions, will be assessed on the same principle as is applied to any other business. That is the first suggestion I wish to offer to the Government. As to the fourteen years limit, I do not think I need go into the arguments which have been used. I remember very well, as a boy, going into this matter. A man had got a licence for some premises near my father's business, and he called in the afternoon to see my father, to whom he said: "You have put 1737 £2,000 into my pocket." I said to my father: "Why into his pocket?" and I have been asking that question ever since. Thirty years ago I tried to start a movement among the Liberal Party in my own neighbourhood to get this value. There is no need to talk sentiment and temperance about it. The thing is business. Here is a lot of money we ought to have. In a strict business point of view we have a perfect right to say to these people: "At the end of the year we shall make you pay what you ought to have paid all along. You have got a licence which has a money value, and this nonsense has gone too far. Thank your stars that you have had a good pull out of it, but we are going to put an end to it. The nation has wakened up, it has got its senses, and it is going to have its own." That would be perfectly right. Supposing I have a licence worth £200 a year, from which I pay nothing except the ordinary licence duty, I am collecting £200 profit every year, and it is money which ought to be handed over to the nation. You give me fourteen years, that is £2,800. I have to pay compensation out of that. I am only being treated fairly, because not only am I getting the State's money, but I am getting the extra business through the other monopoly being done away with. It is quite plain. As a Member who has sat here some years I say let us be businesslike and introduce as little sentiment as possisible. I quite enjoyed the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech. C'est magnifique mais ce n'est pas la guerre. I think the country wants to be businesslike. The second point is the last one I want to bring before the Government. May I beg of you to drop Sub-section 2 of Clause 2. That is the sub-section that provides that simply without anything further being said or done, at the end of the fourteen years period we shall come under the possibility of local option to the extent of prohibition. I am not going to discuss the question of pro-prohibition, but I am going to say to the Government that this clause is both unfair and unwise. It is unfair because it is inconsistent with all the claims that the Prime Minister has made on behalf of his Bill. He has said all through: "We put before you a Bill 1738 which will give you a free hand at the end of fourteen years. There will be"—I think he used the phrase—"a tabula rasa, and then the nation will be able to do what it likes." I ask that we shall have a tabula rasa, without" local veto" or anything else written across it. Let me say to the Home Secretary, if you are going to prejudge anything, if you are going to pre-condition this problem in anything, you will have to put other things in besides this. There are many on this side, of the House who, if this sort of thing is going on, will be inclined to insist that there shall be some kind of security for the public-house keepers who survive the fourteen years. I am very strongly of opinion that one of the greatest means to temperance is not merely to diminish the number of public houses, and not merely to improve the quality of public-houses, but to improve the quality of public-house keepers. My experience is that very much depends on the character and conduct of the publican himself. Therefore, it is a national interest that we shall attract to this trade, as long as it is going to continue, good men, men prepared to put a stake in it, men of substance and respectability, and therefore, I for one say that if you insist on keeping this clause I shall insist on other clauses, and I shall insist on some clause which will give some security to the publicans who survive the storm and stress of the fourteen years, that they shall have at any rate a certain time of security. But we are prepared to waive all that—I am speaking I know for others besides myself—on the broad principle that there shall be a complete tabula rasa. If you put in local veto to the extent of prohibition, you are prejudging the question in a most unfair manner. It is not only unfair but unwise. I should have thought the Prime Minister would say: "Once bit, twice shy,"—at any rate I should have thought" once bit, once shy" I hope he does not listen too much to the syren voice of the hon. Member for Appleby. In the political history of this question—and I have been taking part in it for more years than I like to think of—the chief disaster has come not from the publicans, but from the extravagance and impossibility of those who call themselves temperance 1739 reformers. I am not afraid to stand up for that. I remember very well the present Prime Minister's name along with that of Sir William Harcourt being associated with a Bill bringing in this principle. I tell you I do not think the country know that this is in the Bill. I am very much surprised that, as we schoolboys used to say, the Opposition has not rubbed it in This is one of the best bits of business they could have had, because you have no idea of the storm of passion that will arise. I do not speak of the Welshman; I do not understand him. I do not speak of the Scotsman; he rules me, and I do not understand him. When I look at the Government I know it is a Scottish Government, and they ought to wear the kilt. They are either Scottish or sit for Scottish constituencies, and the numbers of refugees in that direction seems likely to increase. I am not a Celt and I do not pretend to speak for Wales or Scotland or Ireland, but I can speak for England.
§ MR. HARWOODA good deal of it. I think I speak for as much of it as will rule the rest when I say that Englishmen have a rooted prejudice and conviction that every man shall be able to get a glass of beer, if he wants it with reasonable conditions. That is all. Therefore they will not allow any majority however great, to say to any minority however small, "you shall not be able to get this thing" I feel strongly on this matter, and I want this Bill to go through, or a Bill to deal with this evil. I believe this is really a business Bill. I believe it has been misrepresented in the country by all these little side issues that have nothing to do with the principal substance of it, and I urge the Government to do everything they can to make its passage as easy as possible.
§ *MR. RUFUS ISAACS (Reading)I approach the discussion on the Second Reading of this Bill after much thought and very anxious consideration. I am not a member of any temperance party. My views are those of a moderate, average person anxious to consider this Bill upon its merits, and actuated by a desire for temperance reform, but not 1740 lagging behind hon. Members on the other side in the wish to deal justly with those whose interests may be affected by the Bill. I am convinced nothing is further from the thoughts of the Government than to deal harshly, unjustly, tyrannically, oppressively or vindictively with those interests. In the short time I intend to occupy in my address to the House, I desire to direct its attention to the main points of debate, and I propose to lay the arguments before the House with such moderation as I think the subject demands, having regard to the important interests involved in the legislative proposals now before us. It has been said by lawyers on both sides of the House, and not with the least emphasis by my right hon. friends the Members for St. George's, Hanover Square, and the Kingston Division of Surrey that there is no doubt as to the law upon this subject. The general proposition of law, on which I am not going to say more than is necessary to formulate it merely for the sake of clearness, is that there was no right in law to the renewal of a licence before the Act of 1904, and under the law as it then stood, as was stated by a great authority, Lord Halsbury, a renewal is merely a new licence for a new year. With that definition upon that very eminent authority one may rest content, but I shall have to refer to it again, because although the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, agreed in that statement of the law I think I am justified in the observation which I will seek to make good, that the whole of his argument, all the propositions which he put forward in contravention of those for which we are arguing on this side, were based upon the notion that there is a property in that renewal. It is idle to assent to this proposition and then to say that there is a property in the licence. The right hon. Gentleman in support of his argument and in the attack he made upon the proposed scheme of compensation asserted that if in dealing with a house entitled under that scheme to £1,000 a year for fourteen years we only allowed £10,500, we were giving nothing for the capital—that is the licence—we were leaving that out of calculation. And then he instanced 1741 the case of a man who owned land worth £10,000, and producing £1,000 a year, then you capitalise the yearly income for fourteen years by paying him £10,500 at present, and at the end of the time he would still have the land. Yes, but that is based upon this misconception of the whole position—that your right to the renewal of the licence is a freehold. Does the right hon. Gentleman assert that it is? Then if it is not asserted the whole argument falls. As we understood during the debate on the Bill of 1904 when the present Leader of the Opposition was discussing this matter he refused in one sense to recognise a licence as property. He refused to recognise it in any sense as a freehold, although he ultimately created greater rights than licence-holders had ever hitherto possessed. If there is nothing in the nature of property in a licence other than is represented by the value of an expectancy containing elements of speculation as to whether the licence will be renewed for this year, the next year, or the succeeding years, how can my right hon. friend claim payment from capital which has already been bought by the fourteen years compensation? When the Leader of the Opposition introduced his Bill of 1904, what was his position? His statements and contentions are not only an answer to a part of the argument used by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, but also meet one of the fundamental arguments urged by the other side. It is said that what we are seeking is to confiscate property. The word was used by the noble Lord the Member for Marylebone, after he had made excuses for those who outside this House indulged in language of that kind. The noble Lord himself used words of the same character and spoke as if property was being taken away to which there was a legal right. Nothing can be more clearly demonstrated than the fact that when the Bill of 1904 was introduced by the Leader of the Opposition he made it perfectly clear that the system under which the licences had been granted was utterly irrational, and he pointed out that he was recognising no such thing as a legal right to the renewal of a licence. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, and right hon. Gentlemen sitting on the front Opposition Bench, seem 1742 entirely to leave out of consideration that the Act of 1904 did two things. First it provided for a scheme of compensation. "Yes," it may be said, "because you were taking away property." I am aware that if you take land you must pay for it. That is quite true, but what is forgotten is that the person whose land is taken away, is compensated by the State or public authority or company acquiring the land out of its own funds, but by the Act of 1904, the compensation is paid by the trade itself, and if we on this side are confiscators and spoliators what is to be said of the supporters of the Act of 1904? What the Leader of the Opposition did was to say to the trade "You shall give up your licences and give up the interest which you say you have in them." I would remind the right bon. Gentleman opposite that the Leader of the Opposition went even I further than our proposals, because he said, "Before you get that compensation, before I provide the right to pay yourselves for the reduction of your property, you must bring in the ante-1869 beer-houses to the number of 23,000 and throw them into the same category and place them on the same basis as other licences." Hon. Members are quite aware what the difference was in regard to those licenses, and what a privileged preferential position they occupied. Those licenses were the apple of the eye of the men who had them because their renewal could not be refused except on certain specified grounds and it was because these beer-houses had that valuable privilege that they were differentiated from other licenses in respect of which renewal could be refused without any grounds of misconduct. We must remember this distinction when we are accused of spoliation, confiscation, and hear all the other harsh things which are said oftener outside the House than within. Let us remind the trade of what took place in 1904. That Act is really the best argument that we have for the Bill we are now proposing. Of course I do not expect hon. Gentleman opposite to agree with me, but I shall give my reasons. What actually happened in 1904? It is argued now not very confidently by the right hon. Gentleman opposite that the reduction of licences is not a step in the path of temperance.
§ MR. RUFUS ISAACSI will not pursue the point if the right hon. Gentleman says I misunderstood him. The Leader of the Opposition put forward the Bill of 1904 because he said that a reduction of licenses would make for temperance. Lord Lansdowne, in the House of Lords, said the same thing, and I have a quotation from his Lordship's speech here, but I will not trouble the House with it. I think when we hear from hon. Members opposite the argument that a reduction of licenses is not a step in the direction of temperance we are entitled to ask them why was the Act of 1904 introduced? What we have to show now is why we are introducing this Bill. Under the present Act there is no uniform system of reduction nor a compulsory levying of the maximum. It depends entirely upon the will of the authorities as to how much will be spent in a particular year. In the next place, by the decision of Mr. Justice Kennedy progress is most seriously retarded in as much as the compensation to be paid is an effective obstacle to the reduction of any number of houses during succeeding years. What the Government say in this Bill is "We will introduce compulsory reduction over a period of years, and we will have a system of compensation which we think is fair and equitable." That is the real point, and to me the question in controversy always narrows itself to this—is the proposed compensation a fair and equitable compensation? Presumably there would be no controversy, no dispute in regard to the proposition that provided you give sufficient and adequate compensation, you should be entitled to reduce the number of licenses. The only question which arises is, what is a fair and equitable basis of compensation. I agree it is a difficult subject, and it is one which cannot be decided by a dictum of any Member of the Government, and it cannot be disposed of in a few words. It is a matter which we shall have to discuss very much in Committee. Speaking for myself, and not omitting from consideration the figures presented to the House by the hon. Member for Spen Valley and others, I may say that I am not satisfied that the period of fourteen years is a fair and just compensation. I am rather inclined to the view that a time-limit of fourteen years will not prove sufficient. The hon. Member 1744 for Spen Valley quoted the instance of eighty-two companies with a share and debenture capital amounting to £74,912,000, all of which came into his third category of bad companies, some with very small reserves and others with no reserve at all. That seems to me to be an argument in favour of extending the time of compensation, because the situation created by this Bill would thus be eased to those who may not be in the position to make the necessary financial arrangements within the period limited. It might also enable those affected to face the situation without any risk of financial crisis I only put that forward as my own view as the result of the consideration which I have been able to give to the matter, and because I am very anxious that this House should deal rather liberally and even generously with the interests affected by the Bill. If by this course the passage of the Bill here and elsewhere can be secured, we shall not have done a bad day's work for temperance even if we have to give more than some hon. Members think strictly necessary. The hon. Member for Blackburn says that if you extend the time-limit you will take the heart out of the measure. I do not believe the heart is so weak that by extending the time-limit 50 per cent you will make it cease to beat. However, this is a point we shall have to consider in Committee. I fully recognise that we are dealing with the Second Reading and not the Committee stage. In reference to compensation the great question is how you are to arrive at an equitable basis of calculation. The right hon. Gentleman opposite seemed rather puzzled as to how the hon. Member for Spen Valley got at his figure of £1,050. That is arrived at in this way. Suppose you take premises which would make the difference calculated, under the Act £100 a year. You have to take them subject to compensation for fourteen years under the present time-limit. Now that would give at 4 per cent. £1,829, if you take it for the fourteen years adding interest as paid year by year. If you pay the compensation at once you arrive at £1,050, the figure given by the hon. Member for Spen Valley, which is really ten and a half years purchase at £100 a year. That is the fourteen years time-limit calculated at £100 a year, but paid at once 1745 instead of over a period of fourteen years. That is the explanation of the figure at which the hon. Member for Spen Valley arrived. Much has been said about the system of calculating compensation upon the assessment of the licensed house. There is a letter this morning in an organ not favourable to the views we are putting forward on this side of the House—I mean the Standard. It is written by Messrs. Orgill & Marks, a firm of valuers who occupy a high position. In that letter they deal only with the figures for London under the quinquennial valuation of the London County Council, because no other figures were at hand and they controverted very strongly the view put forward by the lion. Member for Spen Valley that the houses were rated at a ridiculously and even a dishonestly low figure. They tell us that is not the case. I am dealing with the London figures which are the figures they give. They say that during the last ten years the assessment of public houses in London has increased by 55 per cent., and further they tell us that licensed premises are now according to this calculation assessed at three times the value of the premises unlicensed. At the annual rateable value it works out that 6,868 houses produce an average annual rateable value of £217 for a licensed house. Taking these premises unlicensed and according to Schedule A, the value would be £72, and, therefore, the compensation would be calculated at an annual rate of £145, which at ten and a half years purchase would give an average of £1,522 per house. One would have thought that this amount would represent very fair compensation for houses assessed as licensed premises at £217. May I remind the House also of what seems to have been forgotten in the discussing on the comparison of the compensation paid under the Act of 1904, and that proposed to be paid under this Bill? Under the Act of 1904 there is only one compensation amount, and from that the publicans share has to be carved out. We have been discussing in the debate the compensation to be paid to the owner; there is a separate provision in the Bill for compensation to be paid over and above that, to the publican. We have to bear this in mind when comparing the compensation payable 1746 under the Bill with the compensation under the Act of 1914. If the figures given by the eminent firm of valuers to whom I have referred be correct, and if we take that assessment as the true average assessment for the country, it would appear that the owners of licensed premises, if dealt with under the scale of this Bill, would really not have very much to complain of. It may be true—and I have no doubt it is true for I could give instances—that there are a number of houses in which the assessments are ridiculously low, whatever the true reason may be, and, however we may have arrived at the result, the fact is that in these houses these persons have been enjoying for a considerable period low assessments, and one would have thought that there was not very much ground for complaint when we remember that under this very Bill the Government gives the opportunity of putting the assessment right, so that if conscience pricks them when they consider the payment of compensation, and if they are desirous of being assessed at the higher rate, their wish call be gratified through the thoughtfulness of the Government. I have dealt with the two main points, namely, the first, as to the property in a license; and the second, as to the compensation. The only other point of substance on which I desire to say a few words is the monopoly value. Much has been said in criticism of that phrase. I would remind hon. Members on the opposite side of the House that we are not the inventors of it. The originators of it were to be found on the Treasury Bench as it was in 1904. They coined the phrase "monopoly value," and they defined to some extent what it meant. We were told, I think by the Prime Minister, that we shall have to define what it means. I hope he will. For myself I am anxious that it should be made clear, and I do not know whether I have quite apprehended what is intended by the Bill in stipulating for the payment of the monopoly value. As I follow it, what it means is not the taking over by compensation or in any other way the goodwill. What is intended is to charge the person receiving a license something like its value— 1747 something more adequately approaching the value of the privilege which is to be given to him by the authorities. I understand that to be something in the nature of rent which he will have to pay for the privilege granted to him. In a case where a pubic-house is producing a profit of £1,000 a year, the authorities will not take the whole or anything like the whole of the amount. They will say that, having regard to the scale on which they assess the privilege of selling liquor in the district, such a house should pay, say, £150 or £200 annually for this privilege. That is altogether apart from goodwill. It has no more to do with goodwill than my action would have in a case where, if I were the owner of premises in which a tenant was carrying on business, I raised the rent from £50 to £200. That tenant would have as good a right to say that I was confiscating his goodwill as the man who having been granted a licence, is asked to pay for the exclusive privilege of selling drink in a particular house. If I may add a word on clubs, it will certainly only be a word after the way in which the subject has been dealt with by the hon. Member for Haggerston. I would like to say for myself that I am glad he made his speech and gave the figures which he submitted to the House. It has been a revelation to me to hear that so many workmen's clubs. I have never understood that was the case. I know some in my own constituency. I do not think that they partake of that character. It is true that they are Liberal clubs. I do not say that the description applies more to Conservative clubs than to Liberal clubs. It seems to me that these clubs are of value and benefit. It is perfectly true that men go to such clubs, and I maintain that they are better employed in doing so than in going from one public-house to another. I ask the House to consider the licensing question in a spirit of fairness and justice to those who are advocating the views contained in and underlying this Bill, and to give us credit for the desire to be fair and just to the trade. We do not intend that they should get any special favoritism shown to them, but we do in- 1748 tend that this proposed legislation should deal equitably with them. We resent most strongly the notion that the Bill is intended to avenge the party is some way upon the trade, or to wrest from the trade something which Parliament has no right to take. No one can accuse the Government of introducing the Bill with a desire to catch votes; and no one can accuse them of intending in the slightest degree to flinch from the attitude they have taken up.
§ *MR. BELLOC (Salford, S.)In regard to the discussions which have taken place on the proposals of the Government, I believe there is an overwhelming public opinion in opposition to them. It is not always easy for a man, who believes that the public opinion of the day is against it, to take action which he knows to be right; but I think in the present circumstances I am entitled to ignore that public opinion and support the Second Reading of the Bill. I do so because, as the Prime Minister said and as public opinion has not yet appreciated, the measure means a clear struggle between the Government and the people in general and one trade alone. That alone should induce a man animated in any way by democratic principles, to support the Second Reading. The noble Lord the Member for Marylebond suggested that the extraordinary outburst of energy and alarm immediately after the introduction of the Bill was due to the fact that the trade found itself suddenly and unexpectedly attacked. If that were so, they would not have had within twelve hours after the introduction of the Bill such a display of printed matter against it, nor throughout England such an outburst of scurrility attacking every Liberal Member and threatening if they voted for the Second Reading. That indeed is one of the greatest reasons why men who respect representative government should vote for the Second Reading. I myself went down to my constituency and summoned the license holders to a meeting. They came in large numbers. Many of them, as I heartily believe, had voted for and supported me in the last election, and a great majority, I say if to their honour 1749 were ready to meet me with arguments as to amendments, and put before me reasonable views. But there was present at that meeting an element of threat which I have not often heard in the course of my life, but which when I have heard makes my decision to resist it only the stronger. From that moment, strong as the criticisms are that may justly be made against the Bill, I said that the Second Reading of it deserved the support of every Radical worthy of the name in this House. Another reason why the Second Reading of the Bill should be supported is that, for the first time, at any rate in our industrial generation, we are beginning to tackle one of the great monopolies. In the near future we shall be compelled to do that in one province after another. The man who does not see that sees nothing of the industrial development of our time. If we flinch now before threats of one monopoly alone, then rood-bye to all economic and social reform, and this House must cease to be not only the representatives, but the guardians of anything which is well worth securing, and of its own honour. That, I think, is a very cogent second reason for supporting the Second Reading of the Bill. There are, nevertheless, certain criticisms which suggest themselves to one who desires thoroughly to represent his constituents. I speak for a constituency in which democratic feeling is strong and in which the ordinary English artisan, skilled and unskilled, forms the great bulk of the electorate. In the first place, surely too much power is given to the magistracy and too little to the popular voice, and especially in the last clause of the Bill which, I venture to think, may not be fully discussed under the fall of the guillotine. In the second place, no power is given to the people of a locality to augment as well as to diminish the number of licenses. To the vast majority of those listening to me that may seem to be Merely a doctrinaire point; but there are areas in England where the fanaticism of the great landed proprietor, or more often of his wife, forbids the people to have that common meeting place, that village club, which a well-conducted public-house is, and for such places it would be of democratic value to give to the inhabitants 1750 the right to say not only that they would have less or no public-houses, but that they would have one or more. Another point is that the Bill does not provide sufficiently for compensation to the tenant or manager and the employees. Amendments in that direction will certainly be moved from these benches, and it will be difficult for hon. Gentlemen opposite not to support them. You are going to throw a considerable number of men out of employment, and you are bound to see that those who are losing their livelihood by the extinction of licenses are compensated. Finally, the Bill does not adequately deal with the question of tied houses. I do not pretend to say at the moment how Amendments in that direction are to be framed, but it is true that if you could attack that evil, and get rid of the tied houses, von would be doing much more real practical work than by waiting fourteen years before tackling it. That is the main evil, so far as general opinion testifies. If the tied-house system had not arisen, and if the independent public-house had continued to exist, three-fourths of the difficulty would not have arisen. There is hardly one evil in connection with the licensed trade which is not closely associated with and has always been augmented by the tied-house system, the effect of which has been to throw a great monopoly into the hands of the wealthy brewing companies. The tied houses represent in extra profit to the monopoly a sum of at least £20,000,000 a year, and £20,000,000 a year means a sum sufficient to defray a universal, non-contributory old-age pension scheme. The tied-house system must be attacked not at the end of fourteen years but at once. If that were done, not only would you have at your back the common sympathy of those who have gone into the details of temperance reform, but the general opinion of the nation. My firm belief is that if those who are most loudly crying out against any change in the present system knew that the Government were going to abolish the tied-house system, they would come forward and support the Bill. I suggest that one of the best ways to meet the case would be to put such words into the Bill as to cause the free houses to be treated with preference against the tied houses.
§ *Mr. BRIDGEMAN (Shropshire, Oswestry)The hon. and learned Member for Reading took a great many legal points in his speech in support of the Bill. We have heard of legal points from other hon. Members opposite, but I do not think that we have heard many speeches with the view of ascertaining whether this Bill, from the point of view of the ordinary citizen, will do any good or harm. Hon. Members opposite have paid tributes to their own courage in sticking to the Bill. I must say that I do admire their courage for that, in the same way as I admire the courage of an Anarchist who goes about with a bomb which may at any time explode and kill himself as well as his intended victim. But the Anarchist does not mind in the least how many absolutely innocent people are killed or wounded in his attempt, and I think hon. Gentlemen opposite are like the Anarchist in this way; they profess that they are going to attain a great boon to humanity if they succeed in their attempt., but they never think of the injury they may do to innocent persons. The Chancellor of the Exchequer to-day made great fun of the position of widows and orphans after this Bill had been passed into law, but not a single person, in the course of this debate, so far as I am able to gather, has attempted to show that this Bill does not affect a very large number of innocent and harmless people. I really have only heard one excuse and one argument advanced by right hon. and hon. Members in defense of this wanton mischief that they propose to do, and that is that the widows and the orphans ought not to have been so foolish as to invest their money in brewery or in trading concerns, that they were the dupes of the brewer and those people who floated their businesses into companies, and that because they were so simple and were taken in therefore they were proper victims for attack by any Government. I do not know, however, how far hon. Members are going to carry the principle that a man who has made a bad investment should have what little is left him of his investment taken away. At all events, I should have thought that it was possible for such a great and wise Government as the present to have devised a measure for reforming drunkards without starving the widows 1752 and the orphans. I know that it is an unpleasant subject for some people because they are put in a great dilemma, as very often on a public platform they make attacks upon brewers which are received with great cheering, and for which they get great support; they say they are going to clip the wings of a trade which has made too much and that it is fair to take something from them. But if the trade and the brewers have managed to throw their shares upon widows and orphans how are they going to be harmed by this Bill? What hon. Members want to do apparently, therefore, is to punish people who have made a bad investment, because they are not getting 5 per cent., and to punish those in the trade who are getting more than 5 per cent. Are you going to stand as arbiters and punish everyone unless they make exactly what you think the right profit out of their businesses? What is the object of this Bill? First of all, to get the monopoly value, because that is supposed to be a great thing for the revenue and that it will bring in a great deal of money. I very much doubt if it will. In the second place it is said that the reduction of licenses will promote temperance in this country. What I cannot understand, however, is how it is that when the Bill of 1904 was debated in this House those who opposed it said it was a retrograde movement, and that although that Bill which had for its object the reduction of licenses, was of that character, this measure which has the same object, though perhaps it does it much more quickly, is a great and courageous measure of temperance reform. Why is it that of two Bills not different on this particular point, one will do an injustice to the temperance cause, while the other will promote it? But will this Bill promote temperance? The particular arguments inducing hon. Members to think that a reduction of the number of licenses will promote temperance are, first, that it makes supervision more easy because there are fewer houses to be supervised, and, secondly, that if the competition is reduced there will not be so much temptation to those who run the houses to push the trade too far. With regard to the supervision of the police, I think that is a fairly 1753 good argument; but then side by side with this proposal for the reduction of licenses you are going to allow drinking to go on, and to an increased extent, in places where the police will not be able to supervise, and therefore hon. Members are not entitled to use that argument as they will do as much harm in the one direction as they will good in another. Then as to the competition. If it is a fact that competition causes license-holders not to push their trade, and make people drink in order to make a profit, surely the same result will be produced if you are going to add to the taxation which the trade already bears. It will in that case be more difficult for them to make their profit, and therefore the difficulties and dangers of competition will be increased by your measure. I was never one of those people who thought that the mere reduction in the number of licenses was in itself capable of doing much good to temperance, certainly not in a great many places. I think it was the Chief Secretary for Ireland who made a speech the other day in which he said it brought tears to his eyes to pass a gin palace in a slum district. And by the way, I suppose he occasionally passes a gin palace in Dublin, and some other Irish cities he visits, and why does it not bring tears to his eyes and make him wish to put Ireland in this Bill? But what brings tears to his eyes in passing a gin palace is not that there are three gin palaces where there ought to be two, but because one of those houses is not properly conducted, and these are the places which should be shut up, not because they are redundant, but because they are not properly conducted. In my opinion, what might be done in the direction of temperance reform in this way is to close public-houses which are not properly conducted, very much more frequently than is done now. If the law as it exists were used as it should be used, I think you would do far more good than you will by reducing the numbers simply because there are so many. I cannot believe that it is impossible even under the present law to bring about an immense boon to the cause of temperance by closer and more vigilant police supervision, and I think something might be done by legislation perhaps, or at any rate, by administration, 1754 in the way to punishing more severely the people who get drunk or by treating habitual drunkards in a more scientific way than they are treated now. But I confess that I am not a great believer in legislation for the temperance cause. I believe that temperance has progressed very considerably in the last few years, and that it is progressing very steadily now, but to my mind, the great forces that you want to call forth in order to make the advance still more rapid are not forces of devastation, but forces of education and religion in our schools, joined with the teaching of thrift and responsibility of parents. This Government, I think, has not done their duty in that respect. They have made an attack upon the religious teaching.in the schools. We understand that they propose to introduce a measure of old age pensions of a noncontributory character, which does not seem to me to encourage thrift. We all know that a year or two ago they passed a measure which enabled men to have their children fed out of the rates—men who had chosen to drink away the money which they ought to have spent in feeding their children. [Cries of "No."] Under the Provision of Meals Bill the parents who do not supply their children with food are able to get them fed out of the rates. [Cries of "No," and "What about the provision for negligent parents?"]
§ *MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Mr. EMMOTT,) OldhamOrder, order. I think the hon. Member had better confine himself to the Bill.
§ *MR. BRIDGEMANMy point was this, that if the Government had turned their hands to thrift instead of discouraging it they would have done more in the direction of promoting temperance than they have done. There are, it seems to me, only two courses open, either for the State to take over the whole of the drink traffic themselves or to put it into the hands of the municipalities or else to allow the present system to go on with supervision, but with supervision of a friendly and not of a hostile character. Under this Bill supervision is of a most hostile character, and hostile to the best people in the trade rather 1755 than the worst, and it seems to me to have this very bad effect, that it must discourage all responsible men from entering into the trade. What you should do is to encourage men who are respectable and responsible to conduct the trade, and then it will be conducted in a way which will prevent, or at any rate, reduce very much the intemperance which, of course, we all know exists in certain instances. What I ask myself and hon. Gentlemen opposite is this—Who is going to be any better for this Bill? Not the brewer. {"Hear, hear."] That is its great attraction, I know. Not the shareholder in any business connected with the trade, not the drunkard—there is nothing in this Bill to make the drunkard sober—not the sober person. As far as I can see, the only people who will be benefited by this Bill are those who gave vague pledges that they would support a temperance measure, and they are prepared to redeem those pledges by supporting any measure which can be described as a temperance measure, although not a single drunken man will be made sober by it, and a great deal of harm will be done to a great number of people who are perfectly sober.
§ *MR. ARTHUR HENDERSON (Durham, Barnard Castle)The Member for Oswestry who has just addressed the House has submitted one or two questions to the supporters of this Bill. He asked how it was that many of us opposed the Act of 1904, with its reduction proposals, and described it as a retrograde measure, and yet are whole-heartedly in support of this measure, when the only difference is that the rate of reduction may be more speedy. I am prepared as one who sat very closely through the debates on the 1904 Bill to answer his question. We did consider it a retrograde measure though we recognised that it might be an instrument for reducing licenses, but we were never convinced that it could reduce licenses at a greater rate than the magistrates had been reducing them. I say at a greater rate. But I venture to say that if some of the figures are compared with those of the last three years, the rate is not much greater. One of the points on which we took the greatest exception to the Bill of 1904 was that it 1756 destroyed to a considerable extent the powers that had been vested in the licensing bench, in the interest of the public, for centuries. And this at a time when the magistrates had been roused by the majority Report of the Royal Commission to a recognition of the fact that they had a duty to perform in the interests of the community; when they had become alive to this duty, then the Bill of 1904 was brought in without any authority from the country. I wish to emphasise this point which I do not think has been emphasised sufficiently in this debate. We cannot forget that the Government which passed that measure came into power because they appealed to Liberals to forget their Liberalism and to Labour men to lay aside their principles in order that the Government might be allowed to complete the work they had in hand in South Africa. They were returned to power, and instead of coming again to the country when they had completed their work, they proceeded to commit what I can only describe as an unauthorised wrong on the country, by the passing of the Act of 1904. Hence, I think, we are fully justified in saying that it was a retrograde measure and in opposing its passage through this House. When the subsequent election came, Our constituents were invited to return us to this House in order to do what we could to reverse the principles of that measure. Now, one observation on the speech to which we listened with considerable satisfaction from the hon. Member for Reading. It was in keeping with his high legal position, but notwithstanding the eloquence of that speech, many of us were much alarmed to find it marred by what I will venture to describe as a very great blot. I say, and I think I also speak for the majority of those who sit upon these benches, that we heard with considerable amazement the suggestion that we, as a community, should be more generous still and extend the time-limit of the Bill. When I listened to the statements he made so effectively on the legal aspect of the case I began to think that he had made out a case for, instead of the fourteen years time-limit, something considerably less. But when he appealed to his colleagues and 1757 especially to those on the Treasury Bench, and desired them to take into consideration the question of extending the limit. I thought the Government on that particular point must have wished to have been saved from their friend. Then I listened, as many others did also, to what I will venture to describe as a most amusing speech from one of the hon. Members for Bolton (Mr. Harwood). It was some time before I could find out in which direction he was going and what he proposed to do with his vote. He is the only Member who has made any attempt to minimise the evils of intemperance. I am pleased to recognise that almost every speaker on both sides has admitted that the finding of the Royal Commission was not far from the mark when they said there was a gigantic evil to be remedied, and that almost any sacrifice would not be too great to obtain that end. The part that most interested me in the speech of the hon. Gentleman was when he appealed to the Government to do away with the democratic nature of this Bill and to take out the local veto provision. I was always given to understand that the principle of Liberalism was trust in the people, and I cannot but describe the hon. Gentleman's appeal to the Government as being of the most cowardly character. It is a strong word, but I think I am justified in using it, for this reason. He tried to carry the mind of the Secretary of State for the Home Department back to those days when the late Sir William Harcourt was in charge of a measure in this House, a measure having for its object the setting up of a veto in connection with the issuing of licenses; his suggestion was that the Liberals suffered for having identified themselves with the principle, and that having been once bitten they should be twice shy. I hope on this occasion, even if the voice of the charmer is that of a Liberal the Government will be deaf to any such suggestion. If they want to take away much of the enthusiasm and determination which is behind this measure in the country as well as in this House, they cannot do so more effectually than by responding to his appeal, and taking from the Bill the provision which gives the veto to the locality. He said, and I challenge his statement most emphatically, 1758 that the working classes were opposed to the principle of the veto; that the working-man liked to get his beer just when he wanted to. Yes, but that was not an accurate statement of the position. The working-men in thousands of cases in this country cannot please himself to-day. Why? Not because like the people in Canada, and in a great portion of the United States, he has been consulted in the matter, but for the simple reason that the ground landlord, knowing that the presence of a public-house on his estate deteriorates the property, has vetoed licenses. There are many estates on which there is not a single licensed house. I challenge the hon. Member further on this point. I say that this principle has had the approval of large numbers of working men in this country. There are scores if not hundreds of hon. Members of this House to-day who have stood for this principle and who if they did not vote for it in the old Parliament, at the last general election pledged themselves in working class constituencies to vote for it whenever they had an opportunity to do so. So far as the Labour Party are concerned, there need be no misunderstanding as to where we are on this question. When it was referred to our Annual Conference two years ago a Resolution was put forward which I may be permitted to read—
It being admitted by Judges, magistrates, chief constables, Poor Law administrators, governors of gaols, governors of lunaticasylums, ministers of religion of all denominations, and social workers generally, that the drink traffic is a fruitful source of poverty, crime and lunacy, this Conference is of opinion that the time has arrived when the workers of the nation should demand that a law be enacted giving the inhabitants of every locality the right to veto any application for either the renewal of existing, licenses or the granting of new ones, seeing teat public-houses are generally situated in thickly populated working-class districts.There was a discussion on that, and a vote taken, and I should like, Mr. Speaker, to give the result of the figures—" For the resolution, 666,000; against, 103,000." At the Conference in the following year this question came up again in a slightly different form, and the following Resolution was unanimously adopted—That any measure of temperance reform should confer on the localities full and unfettered power for dealing with the licensing question in accordance with local opinion. By 1759 this means localities should be enabled to (a) prohibit the sale of liquor within their boundaries; (b) reduce the number of licenses and regulate the conditions under which they may be held; and (c) if a locality desires that licenses are to be granted, to determine whether such licenses shall be under private or any form of public control.So far as the representatives of the Labour Party are concerned, their position with regard to this provision is perfectly plain and straightforward. There is a strong force of organised labour in this country who are very largely giving their support to this Bill, not merely on any temperance lines, but because, in the first place, it provides us with the means of regaining that which we ought never to have lost—the power and control over existing licenses. The hon. Member for Salford I think was mistaken when he said that there was no power in the Bill to augment the number of licences. Provided there is any locality where the number of licences does not reach the number in the schedule, and an application is made for a new licence, the power of the vote could decide in favour of that new license. Unless that is the Bill, I am very much mistaken. If they do not reach the schedule limit, I think I am right in saving the people could decide as to whether the existing number should be increased. There was another point upon which I feel it is absolutely necessary for me to say a few words. One of the objections that has been made by those who have spoken against the Bill is the influence its operation is going to exercise in the direction of the displacement of labour. That point has not only been made in this House. There has been a strenuous endeavour to make it on hundreds of platforms in the country. It is a point in which we are very much interested. I think hon. Members will admit our anxiety in connection with the great unemployed problem. We recognise that it is bad enough to-day, without having it increased unnecessarily by any Bill; and are we delighted to find such sympathy from quarters where we do not always get it, regarding this feature in our social life. I notice that the trade have made very great efforts to find figures of the actual situation that will be created by the operation of the Bill. First of all, 1760 we were told that the number employed by the trade was 1,000,000; then it rose to 1,500,000; and now I believe it is somewhere near 2,000,000. Where are we going to end? Are these figures correct? I challenge them. I say that they are very far from being correct. If we take even those who have written in connection with this question not in the interests of temperance, but in the interests of the trade—Mr. Pratt, who has written a book in defence of the licensed trade—the estimate of the number employed in and about breweries is about 70,000, and the number employed in public-houses is 485,968, or a total of 556,000. What do we find? We find that there has been a great change taking place in the occupations connected with the trade by the transfer system that has been going on. I have here the figures for Birmingham. I am surprised, and, having analyzed them, I venture to say that more men have been displaced as the result of the transfer system in the Birmingham district than will be displaced by the operation of this Bill. I wonder how it is we cannot get this appeal for compensation and for consideration for displaced labour when it is displaced by other forms of monopoly. I was going through some of the Government Returns not so very long ago, and I was surprised to find that in the quarrying industry between 1894 and 1905 the number of hands employed had gone down by 10,000, and yet, notwithstanding that reduction, the increase in the output of mineral amounted to no less than 16,000,000 tons. We never heard any voice raised on behalf of those 10,000 men. These instances can be extended, but I feel quite sure it is unnecessary. If our friends who oppose the Bill and who are interested in the trade are really so anxious to avoid the displacement of labour, I should like to ask them what they think of this particular letter which I have received to-day, to be read during this debate—I should like to bring to the knowledge of yourself and colleagues in the House an instance of the anxiety of the trade not to throw people out of employment. For twenty years I have been on the staff of a trade paper, first as a compositor and then as a reader. About a month ago a petition against the Licensing Bill was passed round the office. I was the only 1761 one who did not sign it in my department, remarking that I did not think it should have been passed round. A few days afterwards I was given notice to quit, not for refusing to sign the petition, but because I left work without asking permission.The individual concerned is prepared to challenge that reason before any properly constituted body. He is prepared to disprove the charge made against him. Those who are crying to-day about the displacement of labour are prepared to be guilty of an act of oppression such as I have brought to the notice of the House, In this debate far too much time has been taken up in dealing with one aspect of the case. It has been property, property, property. There has been an attempt, I believe a futile attempt, made to show that the Bill is going to do nothing for temperance, and that we are not justified in making the attack upon property because it is going to fail to do anything to promote the public good or sobriety. I question that very much. I think we have not heard sufficient of the temperance proposals in connection with the Bill. We have not heard sufficient of the powers that are going to be restored to the magistrates of the country. We have not heard sufficient of the powers to deal with the evils so far as child-life is concerned. None of those who have attacked the Bill dare say that a license is a freehold. They knew perfectly well that their own leader, in the discussion on his Bill, declared that it was not a freehold, that there was no freehold in a licence, that his Bill did not propose to give any freehold. They have nevertheless concentrated their attack upon this aspect of the case. I venture to say that if the temperance proposals had been brought more prominently before the House it would have been to the advantage of the promoters of the Bill. I am delighted to think at any rate that the Bill appeals with force to the Labour members on this side of the House, and that every Member of our Party who is able to get to the House will be here to give his vote on behalf of the Second Reading of the measure.
§ SIR E. CARSON (Dublin University)I can assure the House that nobody regrets more than I do the absence to-night of the Leader of the Opposition, 1762 and especially the cause of that absence. I think hon. Members will agree that it would have been an advantage had the Leader of the Opposition been here to wind up this debate so far as the Opposition is concerned. Not only on the ground of the illness of the Leader of the Opposition do I regret the position in which I find myself. I have not the least ambition—I never have—to trespass on the patience of the House. I I have no ambition to make speeches. Upon this occasion, however, it has fallen to my lot to wind up the debate for the Opposition. I do not suppose for a moment that I shall be able to add much of any great importance to the arguments that have been already put before the House, but I shall do my best, and that is the most that I can do. I listened this afternoon to a very able speech from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was a very able speech, and may I say that its peroration, although I think it was more suited to the platform than the House of Commons, very much affected me. The right hon. Gentleman, although he differs from me in politics, I hope does not imagine for a moment that he abhors, the evils of intemperance any more than I do. A right hon. Gentleman, a Member of this House, a few days ago in the country spoke of the numbers of men in this House, whom he met here, who, he said, were ruining their careers by their intemperate habits and their addiction to intoxicating liquor. I do not think it was a very worthy thing for the right hon. Gentleman to do, for I do not see much advantage in the country, nor do I believe it to be true, to represent that the House of Commons is not worthy to represent them. At all events, I do not suppose for a moment that my right hon. friend in his peroration included me amongst those who were wrecking their careers by their intemperate habits. I only wish I had the eloquence or even the memory to imitate the eloquence of the right hon. Gentleman upon this question of intemperance. I can assure him I agree with every word he said. If I could repeat his speech from memory I would make it part of my own on the present occasion. But when the right hon. Gentleman spoke of the great evils 1763 of intemperance in this country, he forgot to explain to us how the Bill before the House was going in any serious way to affect the question. He forgot to show us, perhaps he did not forget, but could not by any material figures explain to us what was the connection between the number of licences and the amount of intemperance which he was so vividly depicting to the House. Do not let him imagine for a moment because I say that that I say there is no connection. I was a party to the Act of 1904. I put it before the House as a temperance reform. I believe it was such, and I believe that the way it has worked out has proved, that in what we said we were right upon that occasion. I say as regards the present Bill there is nothing of temperance reform which can be worked out in relation to the reduction of public-houses contained in the present Bill which is not in a much more satisfactory way worked out in the Act of 1904. But the only disadvantage of our Act to hon. Gentlemen opposite was that it worked out this result without injury to anybody, whilst the Bill of my right hon. friend the Prime Minister seeks to work out the same result with injury to hundreds of thousands of persons. That seems to be the great ambition of all Radical Members when they produce measures before this House for what they are pleased to call social reform. There is no merit in any Bill proposed by right hon. Gentlemen opposite unless it does an injury to somebody—the injury and not the benefit to the community is the gist of this Bill. [MINISTERIAL laughter.] I quite understand the laugh. I do not mind it. You have never been able to settle much since you came into office, and that is because you have refused to settle anything by taking away the sting as regards those to whom you are opposed. That is the reason why you have failed to settle what I wish you would settle with all my heart—the education question, which has been before the House for so many years. Well, Sir, as regards the result of this Bill and the amount of injury it will cause: after all you look upon relative benefit and relative injury. You must take some sort of perspective view. What I mean is this. You ought not to confer an infinitesimal benefit upon a small portion of 1764 the community and the maximum amount of injury up an a large number of individuals. I could not help thinking of the words that were uttered the other night by that very sincere and very extreme temperance reformer, the hon. Member for the Spell Valley. In a speech of undoubted sincerity and great force he said—
In England and Wales there are 50 per cent more licences in proportion to the population than there are in Scotland, Scotland is in the position that England and Wales will be in fourteen years after the passing of this Bill.Well, Sir, if after fourteen years—after doing what I believe to be incalculable injury to a large number of people who have unfortunately invested their money—if we in this country and in Wales are only to be in the position of Scotland, I should like to know are we reaping sufficient benefit to compensate for the injury inflicted by this Bill? That is after fourteen years, when you have reduced your licences to the same proportion to the population as they are in Scotland. Have not we a right to ask what is the effect of that proportion upon the people of Scotland? Does anyone want this country to be in the same position as the people in Scotland? I do not say a word against the Scottish nation, but I heard a Scotsman once described as a man who keeps the Sabbath and everything else he can lay his hands upon. When I am told that the reduction of licences, with the enormous amount of disadvantage to innocent investors in licensed property in this country, is going to leave us at the end of fourteen years in the condition of Scotland, I ask is the game worth the candle? Therefore, I say that when the right hon. Gentleman made his speech this evening, which I can assure him with all sincerity appealed to me as, I hope, one who takes no low view of the duties of this House in relation to this question, I felt that if we are going to inflict this hardship on these investors, we ought to look for some better result than what we are told has followed in Scotland. The truth of the matter is, the reduction of the houses, I was going say, is only on the fringe of the question. I doubt very much if it approaches the fringe of the question. As regards the reduction of 1765 houses, it is not a question of temperance reform; it is a question, as all these licensing Acts are, of policing the districts in a more convenient way with a view to preventing the houses being carried on improperly. So far as that is a matter of temperance reform I admit it, but no further. So far as that is necessary, you have already got it without injury to anybody under the Act of 1904. The Prime Minister says the Opposition have miscalculated the character and the potency of the forces arrayed behind the Bill. I do not deny that great forces are arrayed behind the Bill, but I believe they are forces which do not take a prospective view of the real situation. May I be perfectly frank with the House, as I hope I always will be, and say that a large number of my own constituents are arrayed as forces behind the Bill, although it does not apply to Ireland. I should not be candid with the House if I did not admit so much, because I have had many communications on the subject. But I believe they misunderstand the question, and so far as I have been able to communicate personally with many of them I believe they will come, after hearing my arguments, to a very different conclusion. So far as I am concerned, I should consider myself a dishonourable man and unfitted to represent my constituency if I were to give any countenance to the main provisions of the Bill I am now criticising. It is the Government and not the Opposition who have miscalculated the forces in the country with regard to this Bill. It is not apathy to the drink evil that makes so many persons oppose the Bill. It is the belief that any temperance reform effected by the Bill will be infinitesimal, while the hardships inflicted will be very great. No greater mistake can be made than to suppose that the opposition to the Bill comes from sympathy with the brewers. To talk of brewers is not to speak of a small class like the Irish landlords, but of 300,000 or 400,000 people interested in breweries. It is useless to abuse the brewers. Why should they not defend their interests? Why should they not fight for their existence? Nothing amuses me more in this House than the way in which individual interests are fought for upon both sides. When t is a question of the interests of the 1766 Irish landlords there are hon. Members opposite who say: "It is only the Irish landlords; perish their interests." [OPPOSITION cries of "No, no."] If it happens to be the interests of English landlords which are at stake—and there are specimens of English landlords on the other side of the House—then they do not hesitate to take their part and plead on their own behalf. When it happens to be a question of colliery rights hon. Members opposite are just as quick at realising their own interests as hon. Members on this side. When it is a question of creating a privileged class amongst the community in relation to the laws of labour, hon. Members below the gangway are not in the least backward, and, what is more, they are exceedingly successful. I do not in the least begrudge them their success. But it is not sympathy with the brewers that is creating the agitation against the Bill. It is the feeling that a precedent is being set up by this Bill which will have far-reaching consequences in relation to all property and all vested interests. We ought to be very careful about these precedents. I will not quote Socialist and Radical journals as to what precedents may be created by this Bill. I might quote paragraphs from the Daily News, which once, at all events, was a great newspaper representing the political interests of hon. Gentlemen opposite. I am glad to see the Solicitor-General present. I take a peculiar interest in my hon. and learned friend's office. [An HON. MEMBER: "A pecuniary interest?"] No, it is not a pecuniary interest, for it pays me much better to be where I am. The Solicitor-General is a great expert in creating precedents. He made a most interesting speech on this Bill, and I can assure the Solicitor-General that I listened to him with no unfriendly feeling. The Solicitor-General's argument was that the Bill is nothing but an extension of the Act of 1904. Thus the reduction of licences is but an extension, and when it is urged that all licences should receive compensation, it is pleaded that it is simply an extension of the previous Act to say that after fourteen years no licence will enjoy compensation. It is claimed as an extension also to say that old as well as new licences are to pay the monopoly 1767 value. This is the way in which precedents are created in the House. Hon. Members should be careful, however, in establishing precedents of this kind, for a time-limit as to compensation for recognised interests may be applied to every species of property which derives its sanction from the House of Commons. ["Oh, oh!"] Take the case of railways. I think I could make a very pathetic speech as to the community's relation to railways by asking where do they get their monopoly, and contending that, as the House of Commons has conferred this monopoly, it has the right to resume it. Then there are the tramway companies, the gas companies, the electric lighting companies, all of whom have received their monopolies from the House of Commons, who therefore, according to the argument that has been used, can resume them by giving fourteen years notice. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is already arranged for."] That is the precedent you are laying down by this Bill, and it is because those who have invested their money in these concerns feel that they are being hit by legislation of this kind, and not because they have any sympathy with the liquor trade and the brewery companies, that the forces of the country are arrayed against you. I know that the Prime Minister, whom I compliment on his well-earned elevation, said that the Opposition are talking of questions where there is property, and that the Government are talking of questions where they do not admit that there is any vested interest or any property. I think that there is a very narrow distinction, not in the abstract, but having regard to the realities, as to what is the question of interest in licences as they have existed 'under the law up to the present time. The whole argument has been—and upon it the Government have staked their whole defence of the Bill—that we must look upon a licence as having been granted for a year. That argument will not hold water on examination. It is not a true argument, it is not a sound argument; and—without meaning to give offence to right hon. Gentlemen opposite—I believe it to be a hypocritical argument. And why do I say so? We have heard very little in the course of this debate as regards 1768 the question of the beer-house licences granted prior to 1869—the ante-1869 licences and of their right to annual renewal. Thirty thousand of these ante-1869 on-licences are to be affected by this Bill. Do you apply that argument to those licences? We are constantly reminded from the other side of the House of the decision in "Sharp v. Wakefield" that there was only an annual grant, with the discretion of the justices to refuse it. Does any lawyer on the other side of the House deny that as regards these ante-1869 beer-houses, the licensees had an absolute right, subject to the conditions laid down in the Act of Parliament, to have a renewal whether the justices liked it or not? The Act says, if the licensee complies with the conditions with regard to the conduct of the house and other matters—It shall not be lawful for the justices to refuse it.If ever there was a vested interest created by the House of Commons, it was the interest created by the ante-1869 licences. One gentleman, whose name at all events will be received with respect by those who practice in my profession—I mean Sir Harry Poland—in giving evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons, said that that was looked upon as a statutory freehold, subject to the fulfilment of conditions. What is the use of asking us on this side of the House about the question of vested interest when you are giving it the go-by to the extent of one-third of the whole of the licences you are going to take away? I take the liberty of asking the right hon. Gentleman opposite—does he deny that the ante-1869 beer houses had a statutory right to renewal, subject to the conditions in the Act of Parliament?
§ MR. ASQUITHYou set us the example in 1904.
§ SIR E. CARSONI did not think I should draw the Prime Minister. No, Sir, we provided that none of these licences should be taken away without compensation.
§ MR. ASQUITHWhich they had paid for.
§ SIR E. CARSONWhich they were willing to pay for, and which we provided by the Act should be calculated upon the basis that they were statutory freeholds. There is the question of precedent again in the question of whether these men are statutory freeholders. Does the right hon. Gentleman really think it is any answer to what I am saying if lie says that not one of them should be disturbed without full compensation for the value of his licence? Does he say that is a precedent? Does he say, not as Prime Minister but as a great lawyer, that that is a real answer to what I have been stating? It is no answer. He wants to hold us on a legal technicality. [An HON. MEMBER: "You want to hold him"] Yes, I want to hold him. I always notice that when it suits this House there is nothing they so much condemn as a legal technicality and a lawyer who puts it forward. In point of fact, this House suits itself to the particular matter in hand. It can find a precedent or a reason for anything. Lawyers are often accused of holding a brief on one side, but we do not hold briefs any more than politicians do when they wish to put forward a particular view, and I know that the Prime Minister would be the last to disparage the views of lawyers in this House. I remember when the Irish Land Act of 1881 was being passed, when they wanted to turn the yearly tenant, who had nothing but the expectancy of being kept on from year to year, into a practical freeholder, they said: "He has been kept on from year to year to such an extent that he has looked upon himself as a freeholder, and why should we not turn him into what he practically is?" And they did. It suited the Radical Party at that time, and so they made use of that argument. So little was left of the rights of the landlord that the landlord asked for compensation. Their answer was: "Nonsense, his expectation was so great that he was really a, freeholder at the time." Now, when you talk of a licence-holder who has an expectancy of perpetual renewal under the law which you yourselves have created you say: "Oh, no, we cannot turn him into a freeholder. How can we, for all he has is a yearly tenancy in 1770 his licence. What does it matter that he has always in practice been treated as a freeholder; we fall back on our legal technical right." As regards the 60,000 licences outside the ante-1869 licences you are ignoring the whole of the facts when you treat these licences as a mere annual interest. That is as fraudulent an argument as ever was addressed to the House of Commons. Who treated the licence-holders as if a licence was a vested interest, or something very much more than a yearly interest? Everybody! But, first of all, the State did, because it taxed them. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said we merely taxed a marketable security. That was not the real fact of the case. I remember a very remarkable speech made in this House by the late Lord Goschen—Mr. Goschen as he then was, in 1895—and I now commend it to the House. Speaking on 8th April, 1895, he said—
If publicans have no vested interest in these licences why does the Chancellor of the Exchequer tax them? I know the right hon. Gentleman (Sir William Harcourt) and I have derived hundreds of thousands of pounds from the view that a licence was not only an annual licence, but entitled to renewal. Does he deny that? He does not; he is not such a robber as he would make himself out to be. Nor am I, or I should share his criminality.… The Law Officers say there is no vested interest in licences and that the holders are entitled to no compensation whatever. I feel a criminal after what I have heard. The Chancellor of the Exchequer not long ago had an estate of nearly three millions composed almost entirely of the value of public-houses. These public-houses would not have been worth one-fourth of the whole amount if there had been no vested interest. It was the expectation of the vested interest that put the money into the right hon. Gentleman's pocket.These vested interests had put millions into the pocket of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Where have they gone? To the benefit of the nation. And now we are going to ask them at the end of fourteen years to pay it over again in order that there may be, to use the words of the Under-Secretary for the Home Department, an abounding revenue for the State. "Oh! but," says the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and this is very important, "we only look upon it as an expectation." I hold in my hand a document that issued, not for the purposes of this debate, but in the year 1890—a document by order of this House, to show how licensed houses were to be dealt 1771 with in estimating the succession duties—death duties. In this document it is stated on the part of the Inland Revenue that upon the death of a freeholder publican the annual value of his freehold is treated in succession duty accounts as permanently enhanced by a licence. It is enhanced in the estimation of the Government as lasting the whole freehold, which means until "kingdom come," whatever that may be. Yet this is only an annual interest, you know! In the case of the death of the holder of leasehold premises, in estimating for probate duty, it is again presumed that the licence will continue. A great deal was said by the right hon. Gentlemen this afternoon about robbery by the brewers, but what about robbery by the Government? The hon. Member for Coventry the other night spoke of the Government being model employers. What about their being the model assessors of the taxes of the country? Sir, that one paper issued by the Treasury Department—a document which is in existence, I believe, down to the present moment—is enough to condemn this Bill. What does it mean? I do ask the House, whether they agree with me or not on the main question, to consider this in all seriousness. Are you going to say, to the publican: "Look here, when we want to take money out of the licensed trade we tell them the licence is a permanent interest, but when we want to take away their trade from them, the only argument we have is that the former argument is a falsehood, and they have no permanent interest at all?" Is any Government entitled to go on making these double statements to the publican—statements which I say are of an absolutely reckless and irreconcilable kind? It is not sympathy with the brewers that is creating the opposition to the Bill; it is because the people of this country never believe, and never will believe, in any Government presided over by a Prime Minister, I care not who ha may be, who claims to say in two different voices: "Your licence is a permanency when I want money, but it is only a yearly interest when I want to do away with it" Everybody knows that it is not merely the Government who have set the example as regards the way of treating licences. There are 1772 the justices—and the Government are responsible for what they do, because they appoint the justices through the Lord Chancellor. What have the justices done? It has been a common practice with the justices when a man applies for a licence to say: "While we admit you probably ought to have this licence, we will tell you what you ought to do. Go and buy up or ten or twelve licences—places that are difficult of police supervision, and others of that kind—and then come back to us, and we will see whether we can give you the licence or not." I was told by a gentleman of my own profession with as large experience as any man in licensing matters, that he has known as much as £20,000 or £30,000 to be paid in buying up licences before coming to the justices and asking them for a new licence. Yet, having paid that money, are they now to be told that the licence is only given for a year and that next year the magistrates may exercise their discretion? Are they going to buy up £30,000 worth of licences and surrender them for the benefit of the State, in order that next year you may take away the new licence? It may be a technicality, but it is that kind of past conduct on the part of successive Governments and on the part of the magistrates that has led to the idea of the public that no Government and no House of Parliament would take, away these interests without properly compensating the people from whom they are taken. Well now, when successive Governments have bought up these licences, what have they paid for them? I remember acting as Solicitor-General in a case where the Government required premises which unfortunately comprised a public-house. I can assure you, Sir, that no political feelings of mine prevented the putting forth the most potent arguments to the jury to the effect that almost nothing ought to be allowed in relation to those licensed premises; that they were really worth nothing. Why, the jury laughed at me! And the only solace I had was that I could afford to scorn their laughter, for after all, the Government had to pay, not for a yearly licence, but for the full value of the premises, exactly as if such licences were going to continue. In addition to that, there has not been a 1773 statesman in almost the last twenty years who has not made speeches leading the public to the same conclusion. A statement has been quoted of Mr. Gladstone. The observation made by the right hon. Gentleman opposite this afternoon was that Mr. Gladstone made that statement before the decision in "Sharp v. Wakefield." Before "Sharp v. Wakefield" the magistrates had frequently refused to renew. "Sharp v. Wakefield" laid down no new law. A statement was made, by a gentleman whom all this House respects, with regard to the reduction of licences, in the course of which statement he said, speaking of the reduction of houses, that he did not believe in cheap morality; and that if the nation at large deemed it necessary that the members of a certain trade should be reduced in numbers and thereby deprived of their means of livelihood, they were hound to compensate those persons, not only for the capital they had sunk in their trade, but also for the years and the lives they had devoted to their trade. That speaker was Lord Wolverhampton, a Member of the present Government, who has gone to another place in order that he may help to abolish it. I might quote many other opinions, but the truth of the matter is that these quotations have very little effect in this debate. The right hon. Gentleman asked me a question and I will answer it: "Have the State," he asked, "the right to get back the monopoly value?" I do not deny it. They have the right. The reason they have the right is because they have the power. Yes, Sir, that is the real reason. What is the use of talking about rights in relation to this House? It is not a question of whether they have the right, but the question is, Under what conditions are they going to do it? That is the whole question, and the one in which the country is interested. I ask the right hon. Gentleman this question in return. Can he produce any precedent where, under circumstances such as these, when the interests in licences has been treated by the Government and every other member of the community as permanent interests, this House has, by a measure such as this, ventured to take them away? The hon. Member for the Spen 1774 Valley—it is on account of my respect for him that I mention the argument which he used, and which he commended to lawyers—said that up to 1860, in what are known as Bishop's leases, the tenants were accustomed to renewals whenever they fell in, but he said that under the legislation of that year that was no longer the case. He gave that as a parallel case; but all these renewals were granted upon renewal fines, every one of them, which meant the money paid for the consideration of the value of the renewal. Yes, Sir, but it does not end there. The Legislature, by the Act of 1860, gave notice of the transfer of this property to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and they gave notice that in twenty Years or twenty-four years there would be no more renewals. But they did something more than that, they added on ten years to the lease. And they did something more than that, because they said the lessee must purchase the reversion, and if he could not get the reversion, the lessor must purchase him out with the ten years added on. Oh, yes; the hon. Member need not shake his head, I read the Act of Parliament to-day. The precedent which the hon. Member cites is not a precedent in his favour, it is one in our favour. Let the right hon. Gentleman get up and under this Bill say: "We think these renewals ought not to go on; we will add fourteen years to your term, and will now purchase out the whole lot of them at fifteen years purchase of the value of the trade." But that is not the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman. That is the only precedent that has been cited and, as I have said, it is in our favour. I pass on for a moment to what happens at the end of this period. Every single licence that has been granted is abolished. Is that fair? And there is something more than that. The Bill gives the right to any district during the term of fourteen years to pass a prohibition against new licences. If that prohibition remains in force in any district, what is the result? There will be no licences at all. We are told that the justices may renew these licences. They will not have the power, and the districts will be without licences altogether. Is that what is in the mind of the Government? What 1775 you are to do is, you are to purchase. If the licence is re-granted, you are to purchase the monopoly value. Each licensee from year to year is to purchase the monopoly value. I could quote cases where public bodies, like the Metropolitan Board of Works, have sold licensed premises with the idea that the licence was to continue, for enormous sums, which have gone to the benefit of the public. I say there is no justice in this Bill. Then you set up a tribunal—the new Radical idea—of Commissioners. There are Commissioners under the Small Holdings Act who are to override the county council. There are Commissioners under this Act who are to have powers of taxation—not taxation by this House, taxation by paid men. That is the new Radical idea. Taxation with representation, the representation being that you are appointed for a political job. And thus you are to carry it out. I pass from that. No appeal to the Courts is a small point apparently. It is a great point in reality. I always suspect when a Government refuses to go to the Courts. (MINISTERIAL laughter.] That is a very cheap sneer. I always suspect when a Government refuses to allow decisions of these political and partisan tribunals to be submitted to independent consideration. One of the objections made to our 1904 Act by the late Prime Minister—whom I hope I shall ever regard with deep respect—was that we allowed investigations as regards the value of premises to be sent to the Somerset House officials instead of to the Courts. So we gave an appeal to the Courts. This Bill takes away the appeal to the Courts, and leaves it to the Commissioners at Somerset House. I say that all that shows the partisan nature of this Bill. It all shows that you are considering one section of the community only, and not the community at large. I must say one more word before I conclude. The matter is one of very extreme importance, and, mind you, it is not a matter that is going to end by the debate to-night. After all that has been done, are you really going to effect any improvement, having regard to the admissions of your own side in reference to bogus clubs? The right hon. Gentleman who spoke to-night as to the evils of the drink traffic said not one word 1776 about clubs. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister in his lucid speech on the introduction of the Bill spoke of the suppression of licences being followed by the growth of clubs. He said that the increase from a few years ago was from 6,371 to 7,110. That is in clubs. What about the increase of the members of those clubs? What about the ready-made clientèle of those clubs? The hon. Member for Blackburn, who represents some labour districts inthis country, said that—There had been an increase in the number of clubs in the last few years and he believed there would be a much more rapid increase if the power to form clubs were left as it was in the Bill. There were now clubs which were as much tied-houses as any public-houses. Unless this question was dealt with drastically they might give up all hope of effecting temperance reform.The hon. and learned Member for Anglesey said—As to that part of the Bill dealing with clubs, it was absolutely no good whatever taking away the licence if a club would be substituted. His friends on the Government Bench must take their courage in both hands and deal with clubs. It was no good their passing a Licensing Bill on these lines. They should make the club pay licence duty.Yes, Sir, but the only matter, so far as I can see, that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister is inclined to give way on is the question of clubs. I use the words of my lion friend the Member for Anglesey opposite—What is really the use of passing this Bill unless you are going to deal drastically with clubs which are going to take the place of public-house.The hon. Member for Haggerston said—The clubs were too strong. You could not touch them without a revolution in the country.There is a good deal of truth in what he said.
§ *SIR RANDAL CREMERI am sorry to interrupt the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but the statement he has put into my mouth I never used. The right hon. Gentleman must have been misinformed by those who gave him the information which he has just given to the House.
§ SIR E. CARSONYes, I have been misinformed; I took it front information but the hon. Gentleman expressed himself very strongly that it was impossible to touch clubs.
§ *SIR RANDAL CREMERI did not say it is impossible, but that it is very undesirable.
§ SIR E. CARSONI should like to express regret that I in the first place misrepresented the hon. Gentleman. It is very undesirable. Why undesirable?
§ *SIR RANDAL CREMERBecause unnecessary.
§ SIR E. CARSONBecause it is unnecessary. Yet we have the testimony of hon. Members below the gangway and opposite, and the Prime Minister himself, that it is a growing evil. It is no use saving that this Bill is being passed in the interests of temperance reform unless you deal with these clubs. The hon. Member for Haggerston thinks it is impossible to deal with these clubs. I believe clubs are growing too strong for you, and that the only remedy is to treat these clubs as licensed premises, and all the suggestions have been in that direction. In this Bill you are setting up annual licensing sessions for these clubs, and in the long run you will have the same trouble with these clubs that you have with public-houses. The truth of the matter is that you cannot deal with the question in the way you are trying to do unless you are able to put forward the theory that the traffic in drink is an immoral traffic, and nobody has said that it is. I should like to say, in conclusion, that if your Bill passes, I believe it will settle nothing. I notice that the President of the Board of Trade, in his farewell letter to the electors of Manchester before he went to woo a constituency to which this Bill will not apply, said that the next time a contest arose in North-West Manchester the power of the licensed trade—the excessive political power—would have vanished by the passing of this Bill. I do not know whether he was expressing the views of the Prime Minister. I think he is entirely mistaken. By passing this Bill you will not get rid of the difficulties of the licensing question. Do not think for a moment that I believe it is a healthy influence in politics, but what will be the state of affairs if this Bill passes? For fourteen years there will not be an 1778 election or a by-election at which the candidate will not be confronted by the trade and the friends of the trade with the question: "Are you in favour or not of putting an end to the section of the Act of Parliament which confiscates our licences at the end of fourteen years?" I do not believe this Bill is a real contribution to temperance; I do not believe the country looks upon it as such; I believe that altogether above and beyond the opposition to the Bill the fear of the country is that you are by this measure creating a precedent as regards other property, and so far as I am concerned I will with all my heart oppose it.
§ MR. ASQUITHThe right hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down, and whom I thank most heartily for his courteous and kindly references to myself, which are the more welcome as coming from an old friend and fellow-worker in another sphere, is, as we all know, a most accomplished advocate. I think that he need not have made any apology to the House for the length of his speech. I am glad he made it as long as he did, for we may now assume that in that speech, at the conclusion of four days debate, we know the worst that can be said against this Bill. I confess as I listened to a great part of my right hon. and learned friend's speech it appeared to me not to be directed against this measure at all, but that it would have been more relevant if it had been uttered in this House in the year 1904 against the proposals of the Government of that day. For what was the main staple of the argument to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman devoted the larger part of his speech? It was that the State, by taxation, and in other ways, had treated the interest in a licence as though it were a permanent and perpetual property. Well, if that is so, what is to be said in justification for the confiscatory legislation of 1904? The legislation of 1904 proceeds upon the assumption that those licences may be extinguished—extinguished upon any scale which the justices for the time being think proper; and at whose expense? When the public in the public interest takes property for public purposes, according to the invariable practice 1779 of our law and Constitution compensation comes from public funds. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself is the author of a proposal which recognises that, so far from this being an analogous case, when in the public interest the extension of the system of suppressing licences is sanctioned, the cost is to come, not from the coffers of the State, but from the pockets of the trade itself. That is quite sufficient to dispose of nearly two-thirds of the right hon. Gentleman's argument. I am not going to trespass on the attention of the House more than a few moments, but I should like, at the conclusion of this most interesting and most momentous debate, in a few sentences to repeat the questions which I addressed to the Opposition at other stages, to see how far they have been answered by the speeches made in the debate. Let me take them seriatim. My first question was this. I asked it on the First Reading, and again on the Second Reading. Is a compulsory reduction of licences within a prescribed time,—and making due allowances as this Bill does for variety in local conditions—upon a uniform scale—is it, or is it not, a necessary step to be taken if you are to make any real advance on the path of temperance reform? When I asked that question in introducing the Bill I thought there was only one answer to it. In point of reason it would seem to me obvious, self-evident, and indisputable, that there must be a connection between the multiplication of facilities for the consumption of drink and the use and abuse of those facilities. If you turn from reason to authority, the authorities are overwhelming and concurrent. Let me quote once more the statement from a great authority. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, in giving evidence before the House of Lords Committee some years ago, said—
The enormous number of public-houses, which is clearly out of proportion to anything like the legitimate wants of the people, must tend to increase the temptation.If that is so, a pro tanto reduction in those opportunities will have its effect in reducing this vice to which temptation is so offered. That is also the recorded opinion both of the majority and the minority of the Peel Commission, and, 1780 what is more important from the point of view of Gentlemen opposite, it is the underlying principle, if there be a principle at all, in the Act of 1904. As I said a few days ago, the only answer to that proposition is this—that if you reduce the number of public-houses without taking any further steps, you will not provide an adequate security against the upspringing in their place of equally extensive facilities for the consumption of drink in the shape of clubs. That is the argument of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. I have always not only admitted, but asserted that there was a danger, and. a real danger here, which has to be effectually dealt with. But as the argument is pushed so far, I must point out that experience does not show that a reduction of public-houses is accompanied by a corresponding increase in the growth of clubs. Since the passing of the Act of 1904, the increase in the number of clubs has only been one-seventh of the diminution in the number of licences that have taken place.
§ SIR E. CARSONWhat has been the increase in the membership of the clubs?
§ MR. ASQUITHYou will find no great discrepancy if you take the membership also. I do not want to labour that proposition, because it is self-evident; but there is a second question. It is this: Is the change which we propose in this Bill in the scale of compensation during the statutory term of reduction justifiable and justified?
§ MR. ASQUITHThe right hon. Gentleman opposite says "No." I will show that it is. The hon. Member for Kingston, who moved the Amendment in a speech which has been highly praised, but not more highly praised than it deserved, cited a number of figures showing the contrast between the scale of compensation which has been paid during the last three years under the Kennedy judgment and the sums which would have been receivable under the new scale proposed by the Bill had it been in force. The 1781 figures were striking and effective for the moment; but they were only effective because they proceeded on two assumptions: first, that the basis of compensation introduced by the Kennedy judgment was intended by Parliament to be, and was, a reasonable one; and next, on the assumption that the assessment of the licensed house under Schedule A of the income-tax was equitable and fairly represented the difference in value between licensed and unlicensed premises. I venture to deny both these propositions. As to the assessment of licensed houses, we propose in the Bill—one of the most salutary provisions in the Bill—to give a year to enable the process of re-assessment to be effectually carried out; and as to the validity and reasonableness of the basis of compensation adopted in the Kennedy judgment, I have never yet heard any one practically acquainted with these matters defend the assessment. For one year and a half after the passing of the Act of 1904 the scale of compensation actually adopted by the Inland Revenue was that which is proposed in the Bill; and it was adopted and practised as far as I know without any outcry from the brewers, and apparently with the acquiescence of the right hon. Gentleman and the other authors of that Act. Then again—and this is a most important point—the Kennedy judgment establishes what I conceive to be both an unfair and an impolitic distinction between the quantum of compensation to be given to tied and free houses. The tied house gets the benefit; the free house is left out in the cold. But in this Bill we propose to put them on a level and uniform basis. Lastly our Bill secures, or is intended to secure—and I will take care in Committee, if the language of the drafting is not adequate for that purpose, that it shall be made so—separate compensation upon a reasonable basis for the publican's loss of profits through the discontinuance of his business. He is intended under this Bill to be treated as a yearly tenant and compensated for his loss of business as such, and the House will observe that his compensation will not dwindle or diminish with the shorter duration of the time-limit. The third question I ask is: Are the conditions we propose 1782 for the resumption by the State of the monopoly value in principle adequate? ["No."] The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down said that we were dealing in a very unfair and uneven way with this particular monopoly as compared with others, and he instanced railways, gasworks, waterworks, and other undertakings of that kind. In the case of railways there is an Act of Parliament passed by Sir Robert Peel, not a confiscator either by principle or by practice, which enables the State to take them back again when they have paid a certain rate of dividend. There is not a single gas or waterworks in this country whose distributable amount of profits among its shareholders is not limited and defined by the price which it charges for the article. It is only in this particular case where we have given a class of persons the most valuable monopoly of all that the State has neglected from first to last to claim any share whatever. So much for the right hon. Gentlemen's analogies. But the question in this category which I am now for the moment discussing may be stated in other words, in this way: Are the equities of the case to be adequately met by a time-limit? That is the question—not the precise duration of time; but can it be met by a time-limit?
§ MR. ASQUITHNo, again. I want to say, if I may, late as the hour is, a few words on this point, which goes to the very root of the whole question. We have been confronted in this connection in the course of this debate by some of the strangest paradoxes even in the philosophy of confiscation. Just let me illustrate what I mean. Take a very common case. A man becomes a tenant of a dwelling-house, or of a shop, upon an annual tenancy from year to year. He spends, in course of time, if the tenancy is renewed, almost as a matter of course, a considerable amount of capital in structural improvements, and in extending the scope of the business he has carried on in the shop. He has an expectation founded upon practice, upon custom, upon what has happened between the landlord and himself that 1783 that tenancy will continue to be renewed, and on the faith of that expectation he goes on living there, as it were digging his roots every year deeper into the soil. But there is a change of landlord or there is a change of mood in the old landlord. Suddenly, like a bolt from the blue, he receives—what? Six month's notice to quit, and out he goes, bag and baggage, reaping none of the unexhausted fruits of the capital which he has there expended, and if any purblind and revolutionary Radical ventures to say that that is a hard case he is told it is a legitimate exercise of the rights of property. Is that confiscation? Will right hon. Gentlemen on that bench regard it as a case of confiscation? Is a six months time-limit sufficient for such a purpose? Yet so it is according to the law of England. The right hon. Gentleman had the temerity to refer to the Irish Land Act of 1881. The Irish Land Act was a recognition of the validity of these expectations and customs. It secured the tenant to some extent in the possession of it, and was denounced by the whole Tory Party of that day. That was denounced by the whole Tory Party as a gigantic act of confiscation. Let us compare the case I have given with that of this Bill. Here is the ease of a licence of a public-house. We know very well who it is really now. It is not the licensee at all. But let us take the theory of the law, the case of a licensee who gets an interest from the State, not from a private individual, as the law says, for not more than one year. The licensee pays for that privilege not a rack rent like many a tenant in his dwelling-house or his shop, but a most inadequate sum in the shape of licence duty. He also expends capital in building up and extending his business, which requires both a local and a personal goodwill. How do we propose to treat him? To give him six months notice and then turn him out into the street? We give him fifteen years notice, and that is denounced as confiscation.
§ MR. LYTTELTONHe is paying compensation all the time.
§ MR. ASQUITHWhat is he paying by way of compensation? He is paying 1784 an insurance against the possibility of his licence being determined within the fourteen years. We give him fifteen years notice, and the very people who defend as the elementary exercise of the rights of property the action of the landlord in the case to which I have referred denounce this as a piece of unexampled confiscation. I explained a few moments ago the philosophy of confiscation, and I have given the House two parallel cases. I shall be much obliged to anybody who can point out to me any flaw in the parallel. You talk of confiscation in connection with this. Let me suggest another way in which this matter might be dealt with. It is going to be my duty, I am glad to say for the last time, to introduce the Budget in a day or two. Supposing on Thursday next, this Bill never having been introduced, I came down and finding, as every Chancellor of the Exchequer finds, that the State is in need of additional resources I were to say: "I think it is about time we revised our scale of licence duties," and that in pursuance of that design I suggested to the House that instead of the present perfectly trumpery and illusory duties exacted from the higher valued houses there should be a really good, swinging licence duty—would that be confiscation? I do not get any answer. I will let the House so far into my secrets as to say I am not going to propose it. But supposing next year or the year after my right hon. friend who succeeds me—assum.ing that this Bill is not passed into law—being a more moderate-minded man than I am were to say: "Oh, well, we won't do this thing all at once; we will do it step by step. I am going to propose that, say, for the next ten years there shall be an ascending scale of licence duties."
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThat is what Gentlemen below the gangway propose.
§ MR. ASQUITHI am not talking of Gentlemen below the gangway. I am talking about what may happen on the Treasury Bench. Suppose, I say, my right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Budget for next year, should propose an ascending scale of duties, carefully graduated to ease the application as far as possible of the 1785 principle of bringing up the scale to where it ought to stand, would that be confiscation? ["No."] No, it would not. ["Fiscal reform."] Now, whether I were to take the whole monopoly value, or the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to proceed step by step with an ascending scale of duties to be paid, that would not be confiscation; but here we, taking nothing at all now and giving fifteen years notice, are to be denounced for "confiscation." Not to detain the House longer, I will repeat the question with which I ventured to begin the debate on the Second Reading, and which hon. and right hon. Gentlemen will answer by their votes: Do you or do you not approve of the principle of a time-limit? [OPPOSITION cries "of No," and "Hear, hear."] At any rate, that is a clear issue on which the division will be taken. Let me in a few concluding words emphasise by way of contrast the two positions we respectively take up. We on this side—the Government, at any rate—say that a licence is a valuable privilege, conferred for a year by the State, which can be terminated without notice. I do not dwell on the question of ante-1869 beer-houses. I do not dwell on them, but I do not want to pass them by. What is the case? By the Act of 1869 they were given a privilege which they until recently possessed, and by whom was that privilege undermined and destroyed? By two measures both proceeding from the Tory Party. The Act of 1882 was promoted by the late Lord Ritchie a good Conservative if ever there was one. {"Oh."] What, does a man cease to be a Conservative when he goes out of office? He, with the assent of his Party, induced Parliament to cut off without a penny of compensation the privilege of the ante-1869 beer-houses in their off-licences,
§ and the right hon. Gentleman opposite brought the whole within the legislation of 1904. We quite agree that the expectation of a continuance of licences has grown up which makes it both politic and equitable to postpone the assertion of the State's title to resume to a time sufficient in length for the prudent trader to set his house in order and provide for the disappearance of monopoly value in the only true sense of the term. That is our position. What is the position of right hon. Gentlemen opposite? We have just heard in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University the, latest and authorised version; and, however it may be disguised, it amounts to this, that a licence for the sale of intoxicating liquors has all the qualities of a permanent and indefeasible freehold—in defiance of the express provisions of the Act of 1904 which they themselves passed—and cannot be justly taken away in the public interest except at the public expense. If that is so—and I am glad to find it assented to—[Some cries of "No."]—I venture to say that rarely has a conflict between the public and private interests in a matter of supreme importance to the public interest been more clearly and definitely presented to the House. It is whether or not in a question perhaps more vital than any other to the social progress of the people, public or private interest shall predominate. That, and nothing more nor less, is the issue the House is now called upon to decide.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 397; Noes, 147. (Division List No. 76.)
1791| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry | Barry, Redmond J.(Tyrone, N.) |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Astbury, John Meir | Beale, W. P. |
| Adkins, W. Ryland D. | Atherley-Jones, L. | Beauchamp, E. |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Beek, A. Cecil |
| Agnew, George William | Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E. | Bell, Richard |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Bellairs, Carlyon |
| Alden, Percy | Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R. |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Barker, John | Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt) |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Barlow, Sir John E. (Somerset) | Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets, S. Geo. |
| Armitage, R. | Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Bennett, E. N. |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Barnes, G. N. | Berridge, T. H. D. |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Barran, Rowland Hirst | Bethell, Sir J H.(Essex, Romf' |
| Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Ellis, Rt. Hon. John, Edward | Hyde, Clarendon |
| Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Erskine, David C. | Illingworth, Percy H. |
| Black, Arthur W. | Essex, R. W. | Isaacs, Rufus Daniel |
| Boland, John | Esslemont, George Birnie | Jackson, R. S. |
| Boulton, A. C. F. | Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Jacoby, Sir James Alfred |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Everett, R. Lacey | Jardine, Sir J. |
| Brace, William | Faber, G. H. (Boston) | Jenkins, J. |
| Bramsdon, T. A. | Fenwick, Charles | Johnson, John (Gateshead) |
| Branch, James | Ferens, T. R. | Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) |
| Brigg, John | Ferguson, R. C. Munro | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea |
| Bright, J. A. | Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | Jones, Leif (Appleby) |
| Brocklehurst, W. B. | Ffrench, Peter | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire |
| Brodie, H. C. | Fiennes, Hon. Eustace | Jowett, F. W. |
| Brooke, Stopford | Findlay, Alexander | Kearley, Hudson E. |
| Brunner, J. F. L. (Lanes., Leigh) | Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter | Kekewich, Sir George |
| Brunner, Rt Hn Sir J T(Cheshire | Freeman-Thomas, Freeman | Kelley, George D. |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Fuller, John Michael F. | Kincaid-Smith, Captain |
| Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Fullerton, Hugh | King, Alfred John (Knutsford) |
| Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Furness, Sir Christopher | Laidlaw, Robert |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Gibb, James (Harrow) | Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster |
| Burnyeat, W. J. D. | Gill. A. H. | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) |
| Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert John | Lambert, George |
| Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles | Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W.) | Lamont, Norman |
| Byles, William Pollard | Glendinning, R. G. | Langley, Batty |
| Cameron, Robert | Glover, Thomas | Layland- Barratt, Francis |
| Carr-Gomm. H. W. | Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Leese, Sir Joseph F.(Accrington |
| Causton, Rt. Hn Richard Knight | Gordon, J. | Lehmann. R. C. |
| Cawley, Sir Frederick | Grant, Corrie | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich |
| Chance, Frederick William | Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral) |
| Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Levy, Sir Maurice |
| Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Cleland, J. W. | Griffith, Ellis J. | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David |
| Clough, William | Grove, Archibald | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas |
| Clynes, J. R. | Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill | Lupton, Arnold |
| Cobbold, Felix Thornley | Gulland, John W. | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Gurdon, Rt Hn Sir W. Brampton | Lyell, Charles Henry |
| Collins, Sir Wm. J.(S. Pancras, W | Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B. | Lynch, H. B. |
| Compton-Rickett, Sir J. | Hall, Frederick | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) |
| Cooper, G. J. | Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis | Macdonald, J. M. (Falkirk B'ghs |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Hardy, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) | Mackarness, Frederic C. |
| Corbett, C H (Sussex, E. Grinst'd | Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Maclean, Donald |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Harmsworth, R. L (Caithn'ss-sh | Macpherson, J. T. |
| Cory, Sir Clifford John | Hart-Davies, T. | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S. |
| Cotton, Sir H. J. S. | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | M'Callum, John M. |
| Cowan, W. H. | Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N. E. | M'Crae, George |
| Cox, Harold | Harwood, George | M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald |
| Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | M`Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester) |
| Cremer, Sir William Randal | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) |
| Crooks, William | Haworth, Arthur A. | M'Micking, Major G. |
| Crosfield, A. H. | Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Maddison, Frederick |
| Cross, Alexander | Hedges, A. Paget | Mallet, Charles E. |
| Crossley, William J. | Helme, Norval Watson | Manfield, Harry (Northants) |
| Curran, Peter Francis | Hemmerde, Edward George | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) |
| Dalmeny, Lord | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Markham, Arthur Basil |
| Dalziel, James Henry | Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.) | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) |
| Davies, David (Montgomery Co | Henry, (Charles S. | Marnham, F. J. |
| Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) | Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry |
| Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan) | Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Massie, J. |
| Davies, Timothy (Fulham) | Higham, John Sharp | Menzies, Walter |
| Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Hobart, Sir Robert | Micklem, Nathaniel |
| Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N | Hobhouse, Charles E. H. | Middlebrook, William |
| Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. | Hodge, John | Molteno, Percy Alport |
| Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Holland, Sir William Henry | Mond, A. |
| Dobson, Thomas W. | Holt, Richard Durning | Money, L. G. Chiozza |
| Duckworth, James | Hooper, A. G. | Montagu, E. S. |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) | Montgomery, H. G. |
| Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) | Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) |
| Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Horniman, Emslie John | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) |
| Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall | Horridge, Thomas Gardner | Morrell, Philip |
| Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Morse, L. L. |
| Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) | Hudson, Walter | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas |
| Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Murray, Capt. Hn A C. (Kincard. |
| Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.) | Rogers, F. E. Newman | Torrance, Sir A. M. |
| Myer, Horatio | Rose, Charles Day | Toulmin, George |
| Napier, T. B. | Rowlands, J. | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Newnes, F. (Notts., Bassetlaw) | Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter | Ure, Alexander |
| Newnes, Sir George (Swansea) | Russell, T. W. | Verney, F. W. |
| Nicholls, George | Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford) | Villiers, Ernest Amherst |
| Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) | Vivian. Henry |
| Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) | Wadsworth, J. |
| Nussey, Thomas Willans | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) |
| Nuttall, Harry | Schwann, Sir C.E.(Manchester) | Walsh, Stephen |
| O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth) | Scott, A.H. (Ashton under Lyne | Walters, John Tudor |
| O'Grady, J. | Sears, J. E. | Walton, Joseph |
| O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens | Seaverns, J. H. | Ward, John (Stokeupon Trent) |
| Parker, James (Halifax) | Seddon, J. | Ward W. Dudley(Southampt'n |
| Partington, Oswald | Seely, Colonel | Wardle, George J. |
| Paulton, James Mellor | Shackleton, David James | Waring, Walter |
| Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) | Wason, Rt. Hn. E (Clackmannan |
| Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Shipman, Dr. John G. | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Pearson, W.H.M. (Suffolk, Eye) | Silcock, Thomas Ball | Waterlow, D. S. |
| Perks, Robert William | Simon, John Allsebrook | Watt, Henry A. |
| Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton | Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John | Wedgwood, Josiah C. |
| Philipps, J. Wynford (Pembroke | Sloan, Thomas Henry | Weir, James Galloway |
| Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) | Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | White Sir George (Norfolk) |
| Pickersgill, Edward Hare | Snowden, P. | White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire) |
| Pirie, Duncan V. | Soares, Ernest J. | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Pollard, Dr. | Spicer, Sir Albert | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central) | Stanger, H. Y. | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E. | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) | Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer |
| Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) | Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.) | Wiles, Thomas |
| Priestley, W.E. B. (Bradford, E.) | Steadman, W. C. | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Pullar, Sir Robert | Stewart, Halley (Greenock) | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen |
| Radford, G. H. | Stewart-Smith. D. (Kendal) | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Raphael, Herbert H. | Strachey, Sir Edward | Williamson, A. |
| Rea, Russell (Gloucester) | Straus, B. S. (Mile End) | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' | Stuart, James (Sunderland) | Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.) |
| Rees, J. D. | Summerbell, T. | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.) |
| Rendall, Athelstan | Sutherland, J. E. | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th | Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth) | Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough) |
| Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n | Taylor, John W. (Durham) | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.) |
| Richardson, A. | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Ridsdale, E. A. | Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | Tennant, H. J.(Berwickshire) | Winfrey, R. |
| Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) | Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E | Wodehouse, Lord |
| Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Robertson, Sir G Scott (Bradf'rd | Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr | |
| Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) | Thomasson, Franklin | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. |
| Robinson, S. | Thompson, J.W.H (Somerset, E | Whiteley and Mr. J. A. |
| Robson, Sir William Snowdon | Thorne, William | Pease. |
| Roe, Sir Thomas | Tomkinson, James | |
| NOES. | ||
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Burdett-Coutts, W. | Craik, Sir Henry |
| Anstruther-Gray, Major | Burke, E. Haviland- | Dalrymple, Viscount |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Butcher, Samuel Henry | Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon |
| Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O. | Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M. | Doughty, Sir George |
| Ashley, W. W. | Carlile, E. Hildred | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H. | Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Du Cros, Arthur Philip |
| Balcarres, Lord | Castlereagh, Viscount | Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Cave, George | Faber, George Denison (York) |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey- | Fardell, Sir T. George |
| Baring, Capt. Hn. G (Winchester | Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E | Fell, Arthur |
| Barnard, E. B. | Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J.A (Worc. | Forster, Henry William |
| Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks | Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry | Gardner, Ernest |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Clive, Percy Archer | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West) |
| Bertram, Julius | Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham) | Gooch, Henry Cubitt (Peckham) |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Goulding, Edward Alfred |
| Bottomley, Horatio | Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm | Gretton, John |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Courthope, G. Loyd | Guinness, Walter Edward |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S. | Haddock, George B. |
| Bull, Sir William James | Craig, Capt. James (Down, E.) | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashf'rd |
| Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Middlemore, John Throgmorton | Smith, F.E. (Liverpool, Walton) |
| Hay, Hon. Claude George | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Heaton, John Henniker | Mooney, J. J. | Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk |
| Helmsley, Viscount | Morrison-Bell, Captain | Starkey, John R. |
| Hill, Sir Clement | Muntz, Sir Philip A. | Staveley-Hill, Henry (Staff'sh. |
| Hills, J. W. | Murphy, N. J. (Kilkenny, S.) | Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Hogan, Michael | Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield) | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Nield, Herbert | Talbot, Rt. Hn. J.G. (Oxf'rd Univ |
| Houston, Robert Paterson | Nolan, Joseph | Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Lanark) |
| Hunt, Rowland | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Joynson-Hicks, William | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N. | Tillett, Louis John |
| Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H. | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
| Kerry, Earl of | Parkes, Ebenezer | Walker, Col. W.H. (Lancashire) |
| Keswick, William | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington | Walrond, Hon. Lionel |
| Kimber, Sir Henry | Percy, Earl | Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) |
| King, Sir Henry Seymour (Hull) | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp | Whitbread, Howard |
| Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. | Randles, Sir John Scurrah | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham | Ratcliff, Major R. F. | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.) |
| Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A.R. | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham) | Remnant, James Farquharson | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) |
| Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin, S) | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) | Winterton, Earl |
| Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Ronaldshay, Earl of | Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart- |
| Lowe, Sir Francis William | Rutherford, John (Lancashire) | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) | Young, Samuel |
| M'Arthur, Charles | Salter, Arthur Clavell | Younger, George |
| M'Calmont, Colonel James | Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles | |
| M'Iver, Sir Lewis | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir |
| Magnus, Sir Philip | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) | Alexander Acland-Hood and |
| Marks H. H. (Kent) | Sheehy, David | Viscount Valentia. |
| Mason, James F. (Windsor) | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley George D | |
| Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East) |
§ Main Question put.
1792§ The House divided:—Ayes, 394; Noes, 148. (Division List No. 76.)
1797| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Bethell, Sir J.H. (Essex, Romf'rd | Clynes, J. R. |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon) | Cobbold, Felix Thornley |
| Adkins, W. Ryland D. | Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) |
| Agar-Robartes, Hon. T. C. R. | Black, Arthur W. | Collins, Sir Wm. J.(S. Pancras, W |
| Agnew, George William | Boland, John | Compton-Rickett, Sir J. |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Boulton, A. C. F. | Cooper, G. J. |
| Alden, Percy | Bowerman, C. W. | Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) |
| Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch) | Brace, William | Corbett, C.H. (Sussex, E. Grinst'd |
| Allen, Charles P. (Stroud) | Bramsdon, T. A. | Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) |
| Armitage, R. | Branch, James | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. |
| Armstrong, W. C. Heaton | Bring, John | Cory, Sir Clifford John |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Bright, J. A. | Cotton, Sir H. J. S. |
| Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry | Brocklehurst, W. B. | Cowan, W. H. |
| Astbury, John Meir | Brodic, H. C. | Cox, Harold |
| Atherley-Jones, L. | Brooke, Stopford | Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) |
| Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth) | Brunner, J.F.L. (Lancs., Leigh) | Cremer, Sir William Randal |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Brunner, Rt Hn Sir J.T (Cheshire | Crooks, William |
| Balfour, Robert (Lanark) | Bryce, J. Annan | Crosfield, A. H. |
| Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight) | Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Cross, Alexander |
| Barker, John | Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Crossley, William J. |
| Barlow, Sir John E. (Somerset) | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Curran, Peter Francis |
| Barlow, Percy (Bedford) | Burnyeat, W. J. D. | Dalmeny, Lord |
| Barnes, G. N. | Burt, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Dalziel, James Henry |
| Barran, Rowland Hirst | Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles | Davies, David (Montgomery Co. |
| Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.) | Byles, William Pollard | Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) |
| Beale, W. P. | Cameron, Robert | Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan |
| Beauchamp, E. | Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Davies, Timothy (Fulham) |
| Beck, A. Cecil | Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight | Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.) |
| Bell, Richard | Cawley, Sir Frederick | Dickinson, W.H. (St. Pancras, N. |
| Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R. | Chance, Frederick William | Dickson-Poynder, Sir John P. |
| Benn, Sir J. Williams (Devonp'rt | Channing, Sir Francis Allston | Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles |
| Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets, S. Geo. | Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R. | Dobson, Thomas W. |
| Bennett, E. N. | Cleland, J. W. | Duckworth, James |
| Berridge, T. H. D. | Clough, William | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness |
| Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley) | Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N | Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall) |
| Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne) | Horniman, Emslie John | Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) |
| Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall | Horridge, Thomas Gardner | Morrell, Philip |
| Edwards, Clement (Denbigh) | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Morse, L. L. |
| Edwards, Enoch (Hanley) | Hudson, Walter | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas |
| Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Hutton, Alfred Eddison | Murray, Capt. Hn. A.C. (Kincard. |
| Ellis, Rt. Hon. John Edward | Hyde, Clarendon | Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.) |
| Erskine, David C. | Illingworth, Percy H. | Myer, Horatio |
| Essex, R. W. | Isaacs, Rufus Daniel | Napier, T. B. |
| Esslemont, George Birnie | Jackson, R. S. | Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw) |
| Evans, Sir Samuel T. | Jacoby, Sir James Alfred | Newnes, Sir George (Swansea) |
| Everett, R. Lacey | Jardine, Sir J. | Nicholls, George |
| Faber, G. H. (Boston) | Jenkins, J. | Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r |
| Fenwick, Charles | Johnson, John (Gateshead) | Norton, Capt. Cecil William |
| Ferens, T. R. | Johnson, W. (Nuneaton) | Nussey, Thomas Willans |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro | Jones, Sir D. Brynmor (Swansea | Nuttall, Harry |
| Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | Jones, Leif (Appleby) | O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth) |
| Ffrench, Peter | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire | O'Grady, J. |
| Fiennes, Hon. Eustace | Jowett, F. W. | O'Neill, Hon. Robert. Torrens |
| Findlay, Alexander | Kearley, Hudson E. | Parker, James (Halifax) |
| Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter | Kekewich, Sir George | Partington, Oswald |
| Freeman-Thomas, Freeman | Kelley, George D. | Paulton, James Mellor |
| Fuller, John Michael F. | Kincaid-Smith, Captain | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) |
| Fullerton, Hugh | King, Alfred John (Knutsford) | Pearce, William (Limehouse) |
| Furness, Sir Christopher | Laidlaw, Robert | Pearson, W.H.M. (Suffolk, Eye) |
| Gibb, James (Harrow) | Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster | Perks, Robert William |
| Gill, A. H. | Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester) | Philipps, Col. Ivor (S'thampton) |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John | Lambert, George | Philipps, J. Wynford (Pembroke |
| Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W. | Lamont, Norman | Philipps, Owen C. (Pembroke) |
| Glendinning, R. G. | Langley, Batty | Pickersgill, Edward Hare |
| Glover, Thomas | Layland-Barratt, Francis | Pirie, Duncan V. |
| Gooch, George Peabody (Bath) | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington | Pollard, Dr. |
| Gordon, J. | Lehmann, R. C. | Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E.) |
| Grant, Corrie | Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich | Priestley, Arthur (Grantham) |
| Greenwood, G. (Peterborough) | Lever, W. H. (Cheshire, Wirral) | Priestley, W.E.B. (Bradford, E.) |
| Greenwood, Hamar (York) | Levy, Sir Maurice | Pullar, Sir Robert |
| Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | Lewis, John Herbert | Radford, G. H. |
| Griffith, Ellis J. | Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David | Raphael, Herbert H. |
| Grove, Archibald | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Rea, Russell (Gloucester) |
| Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill | Lupton, Arnold | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarboro' |
| Gulland, John W. | Luttrell, Hugh Fownes | Rees, J. D. |
| Gurdon, Rt. Hn. Sir W. Brampton | Lyell, Charles Henry | Rendall, Athelstan |
| Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B. | Lynch, H. B. | Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th |
| Hall, Frederick | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n |
| Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis | Macdonald, J.M. (Falkirk B'ghs | Richardson, A. |
| Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) | Maclean, Donald | Ridsdale, E. A. |
| Hardy, George A. (Suffolk) | Maclean, Donald | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r) | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Roberts, G. H. (Norwich) |
| Harmsworth, R.L. (Caithn'ss-sh | Macpherson, J. T. | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) |
| Hart-Davies, T. | MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S. | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd |
| Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | M'Callum, John M. | Robertson, J. M. (Tyneside) |
| Harvey, W.E. (Derbyshire, N.E. | M'Crae, George | Robinson, S. |
| Harwood, George | M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Robson, Sir William Snowdon |
| Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | M'Laren, Sir C. B. (Leicester) | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | M'Laren, H. D. (Stafford, W.) | Rogers, F. E. Newman |
| Haworth, Arthur A. | M'Micking, Major G. | Rose, Charles Day |
| Hazel, Dr. A. E. | Maddison, Frederick | Rowlands, J. |
| Hedges, A. Paget | Mallet, Charles E. | Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter |
| Helme, Norval Watson | Manfield, Harry (Northants) | Russell, T. W. |
| Hemmerde, Edward George | Mansfield, H. Rendall (Lincoln) | Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford) |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Markham, Arthur Basil | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) |
| Henderson, J.M. (Aberdeen, W.) | Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston) | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) |
| Henry, Charles S. | Marnham, F. J. | Schwann, C. Duncan (Hyde) |
| Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.) | Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry) | Schwann, Sir C.E. (Manchester) |
| Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe) | Massie, J. | Scott, A.H. (Ashton under Lyne |
| Higham, John Sharp | Menzies, Walter | Sears, J. E. |
| Hobart, Sir Robert | Micklem, Nathaniel | Seaverns, J. H. |
| Hobhouse, Charles E. H. | Middlebrook, William | Seddon, J. |
| Hodge, John | Molteno, Percy Alport | Seely, Colonel |
| Holland, Sir William Henry | Mond, A. | Shackleton, David James |
| Holt, Richard Durning | Money, L. G. Chiozza | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) |
| Hooper, A. G. | Montagu, E. S. | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Hope, John Deans (Fife, West | Montgomery, H. G. | Silcock, Thomas Ball |
| Simon, John Allsebrook | Thomasson, Franklin | White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire) |
| Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John | Thompson, J. W. H (Somerset, E | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Sloan, Thomas Henry | Thorne, William | Whitehead, Rowland |
| Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie | Tomkinson, James | Whitley, John Henry (Halifax) |
| Snowden, P. | Torrance, Sir A. M. | Whittaker, Sir Thomas Palmer |
| Soares, Ernest J. | Toulmin, George | Wiles, Thomas |
| Spicer, Sir Albert | Ure, Alexander | Williams. J. (Glamorgan) |
| Stanger, H. Y. | Verney, F. W. | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarth'n |
| Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.) | Villiers, Ernest Amherst | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Stanley, Hn. A. Lyulph (Chesh.) | Vivian, Henry | Williamson. A. |
| Steadman, W. C. | Wadsworth, J. | Wills, Arthur Walters |
| Stewart, Halley (Greenock) | Walker, H. De R. (Leicester) | Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.) |
| Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal) | Walsh, Stephen | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.) |
| Strachey, Sir Edward | Walters, John Tudor | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| Straus, B. S. (Mile End) | Walton, Joseph | Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough) |
| Stuart, James (Sunderland) | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent | Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N. |
| Summerbell, T. | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton | Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.) |
| Sutherland, J. E. | Wardle, George J. | Wilson, T. W. (Westhoughton) |
| Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth | Waring, Walter | Winfrey, R. |
| Taylor, John W. (Durham) | Wason, Rt. Hn. E.(Clackmannan | Wodehouse, Lord |
| Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) | Yoxall, James Henry |
| Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury | Waterlow, D. S. | |
| Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire) | Watt, Henry A. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. |
| Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.) | Wedgwood, Josiah C. | Whiteley and Mr. J. A. |
| Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E. | Weir, James Galloway | Pease. |
| Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr | White, Sir George (Norfolk) | |
| NOES | ||
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Doughty, Sir George | M'Calmont, Colonel James |
| Anstruther-Gray, Major | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | M'Iver, Sir Lewis |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Du Cros, Arthur Philip | Magnus, Sir Philip |
| Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn Hugh O. | Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan | Marks, H. H. (Kent) |
| Ashley, W. W. | Faber, George Denison (York) | Mason, James F. (Windsor) |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H. | Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. |
| Balcarres, Lord | Fardell, Sir T. George | Middlemore, John Throgmort'n |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Fell, Arthur | Mildmay, Francis Bingham |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Forster, Henry William | Mooney, J. J. |
| Banner, John S. Harmood | Gardner, Ernest | Morrison-Bell, Captain |
| Baring, Capt. Hn. G (Winchester | Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol. West) | Muntz. Sir Philip A. |
| Barnard, E. B. | Gooch, Henry Cubitt (Peckham) | Murphy, N. J. (Kilkenny. S.) |
| Beach, Hn. Michael Hugh Hicks | Goulding, Edward Alfred | Nicholson. Wm. G. (Petersfield) |
| Beckett, Hon. Gervase | Gretton, John | Nield, Herbert |
| Bertram, Julius | Guinness, Walter Edward | Nolan, Joseph |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Haddock, George B. | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) |
| Bottomley, Horatio | Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N |
| Bowles, G. Stewart | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) |
| Bridgeman, W. Clive | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Bull, Sir William James | Heaton, John Henniker | Pease,Herbert Pike(Darlington |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Helmsley, Viscount | Percy, Earl |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Hill, Sir Clement | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Butcher, Samuel Henry | Hills, J. W. | Randles, Sir John Scurrah |
| Campbell, Rt. Hon. J. H. M. | Hogan, Michael | Ratcliff, Major R. F. |
| Carlile, E. Hildred | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Houston, Robert Paterson | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Castlereagh, Viscount | Hunt, Rowland | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Cave, George | Idris, T. H. W. | Ronaldshay, Earl of |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Joynson-Hicks, William | Rutherford, John (Lancashire) |
| Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey- | Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H. | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.) | Kerry, Earl of | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A.(Wore | Keswick, William | Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles |
| Chaplin. Rt. Hon. Henry | Kimber, Sir Henry | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert |
| Clive, Percy Archer | King, Sir Henry Seymour(Hull) | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Coates, E. Feetham (Lewisham | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. | Sheffield, Sir Berkeley GeorgeD. |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East) |
| Collings, Rt. Hn. J. (Birmingh'm | Lockwood, Rt. Hn Lt -Col. A. R. | Smith, F. F. (Liverpool, Walton) |
| Courthope, G. Loyd | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S. | Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin, S. | Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk) |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Starkey, John R. |
| Craik, Sir Henry | Lowe, Sir Francis William | Staveley-Hill. Henry (Staff'sh.) |
| Dalrymple. Viscount | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Strauss. E. A. (Abingdon) |
| Dixon-Hartland, Sir FredDixon | M'Arthur, Charles | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'd Univ | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T. | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Lanark) | Whitbread, Howard | Young, Samuel |
| Thornton, Percy H. | White, Patrick (Meath, North) | Younger, George |
| Tillett, Louis John | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.) | |
| Tuke, Sir John Batty | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord | TELLERS FOR THE NOES-Sir |
| Walker, Col. W. H (Lancashire) | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) | Alexander Acland-Hood and |
| Walrond, Hon. Lionel | Winterton, Earl | Viscount Valentia. |
| Warde, Col. C. E. (Kent, Mid) | Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart- |
Bill read a second time.
§ Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House for Monday next.—(Mr. Asquith.)